it's gonna be a good year

The following are rumors that are swirling about the New Year's Eve party I will be at this evening:

1. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) will be there.
2. Josh Hartnett's sister will be in attendance.
3. Michael Cera will come and explain why he is holding out from the Arrested Development movie.*

*This rumor may be entirely made up by yours truly.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tix/968788204.html

A Craigslist post in which someone looks for tickets to this party.


Finally, a couple New Year's related videos from The Walkmen. I wonder why they're so obsessed with New Year's.

Fuck You Death Cab...

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/148227-zoey-deschanel-and-ben-gibbard-engaged

thanks for taking another one off the market gibbard. what a douche.

Today I Almost Ate A Cinnabon

While in the mall today I had the desire to eat something in addition to the small meal I had just consumed. I was in a poor quality mood at the moment for a number of reasons and I feel comfortable saying that being in a mall only compounds the stress from the laundry list of things to stress about regarding the holidays. As I wandered around the food court I eventually decided that I would take the plunge and get a Cinnabon.

You're probably wondering why this warrants a post (especially considering I posted yesterday, two in one week is unheard of). Well I haven't had a Cinnabon in probably about 6 years or so, maybe more. In high school a group of us would sometimes hit up the Cinnabon in Paramus Park after school or during our double lunch and of course immediately regret it. The instant remorse that comes from eating a Cinnabon is half the fun. Shortly after graduating high school I realized how gross Cinnabons truly are and how they are not nearly worth the effort/grossness that comes along with consuming them.

It's been a long time since I've had a Cinnabon. So long that I forgot that the Cinnabon in Paramus Park no longer exists. So I ended up not having a Cinnabon not by my own volition, but due to it not being at option.

All of this is significant because as soon as I realized that I would not be eating a Cinnabon today but I had talked myself into one it dawned on me that you have to be in a pretty bad place to decide to eat a Cinnabon. Surely someone who is feeling good about themselves has no interest in bringing even one bite of a Cinnabon anywhere near their body. I couldn't stop thinking about this as I debated whether or not I wanted to get something else instead. "I must be in a real shitty mood if I was going to eat one of those," I thought to myself. Why else would someone subject themselves to that unless they were really really stoned?

Jim Gaffigan has a great routine about Cinnabons where he mentions how the company must be owned by Satan. I agree with this 100%.

Yeah I Was Wondering What Lil Wayne Thought About the K-Rod Signing As Well

While writing my thoughts on baseball's winter meetings last week I knew that there was something missing. I was not quite able to put my finger on it but I could definitely tell there was a missing piece of sorts. Today I realized what it was: the post had nothing regarding what Lil Wayne thought about the Mets' latest moves. Today that has been addressed by none other than Weezy himself. At his blog for ESPN.com Lil Wayne wrote that he approves of the Mets signing Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez. He's a "big fan" of the move and thinks that will provide the "killer instinct to push them over the top."

The best part of the blog entry, however, is about what song he would choose to come out to if he were a closer. His choice is Semisonic's one hit song, "Closing Time" (surely nobody has had the idea to come out to this before). Even better than his song selection is how he would go about editing to his liking:

"I've thought about it, and my song would be "Closing Time" by that group Semisonic. You know the one: Closing Tiiiiiiiime. Except I'd just have that loop over and over again "Closing Tiiiiiiime, Closing Tiiiiiiiime" while I came in from the bullpen. And I wouldn't run to the mound; I'd walk just to soak it all in. And for the away games it wouldn't matter that I didn't get to hear my song because I'd hear all the fans booing me and that would be enough to get me going."

Kids On Leashes, Winter Meetings, and The Office

This post will address everything mentioned in the title in the most efficient way possible-bullet form.

• Today I saw a man walking his child around on a leash. It was not like a dog's leash where it went around his daughter's neck, instead it used a harness which was attached to a backpack in the shape of a dog. The dog's tail was rather long and served as the actual leash. I guess I can understand the purpose of such an item (although the father was still unable to keep his daughter from running into a woman's leg at a high speed), but something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. As I put it in a text message to a friend of mine: "You can make it look like a tail, a tongue, or even a dick...a kid on a leash is still a kind on a leash."

• Baseball's Winter Meeting came to a close today, the next few bullets will be on the moves of the following teams: the Yankees, Mets, and Phillies.

• It seems that our country's atrocious economy hasn't stopped the Yankees from opening the checkbook, once today's announced signing of A.J. Burnett is official they will have allocated almost a quarter billion dollars on him and prize free agent acquisition C.C. Sabathia. After last year's "restrained" approach by the Yankees Front Office I almost completely forgot how obnoxious it is when they throw wads of cash around at the best free agents without restraint. Upon hearing about the Sabathia signing, however, it all came rushing back to me, years of frustration: Mussina, Giambi, Sheffield, Damon, etc. This probably means another October dedicated to rooting against the Yankees considering the Mets will have likely choked the season away by that point.

• That last sentence there may have made you think I'm not happy with the direction the Mets have gone in, right? Well had you asked me a few days ago I'd say you were correct. Omar Minaya has done a solid job the past couple days though and I am feeling a little bit more optimistic. While K-Rod was not my top choice to be the Mets closer, he is arguable the safest option and will undoubtedly quiet the mainstream media when it comes to the Mets bullpen...breaking the record in a ridiculously overrated stat such as saves will do that. So I was fine with that move, what happened next was the icing on the cake, that is, if I actually liked icing. Minaya traded Aaron Heilman (who couldnt possibly step on the Citifield mound next year), Joe Smith (always liked him but ultimately replacable), and Endy Chavez (hideously overrated by Mets fans and would've possibly been the most popular Met of all time had he been white), and minor leaguers for J.J. Putz (the man I wanted to be the Mets closer in the first place), Jeremy Reed (compared to Endy he's a wash), and Sean Green, a player that ESPN's Keith Law ( a man/Facebook friend whose baseball opinion I value over all others and a strong candidate for man-crush #3) thinks highly of. Omar still has a significant amount of work to do this offseason, another starter is needed as is some sort of offensive upgrade. I think it's safe to say he is off to a good start though.

• Finally we make it to the Phillies, who up until today had done nothing this offseason but talk shit (I'm looking at you Cole Hamels). Now winning a World Series grants you the right to say pretty much whatever you want so I'll keep my mouth shut on that issue. Today's signing of Raul Ibanez, however, is atrocious in my humble opinion. I'm not quite sure when it happened, but at some point Ibanez became hideously overrated. How this happened I don't know, I think a lot has to do with his RBI totals and RBI is, like saves, a statistic that has outlived it's usefulness. As soon as the rest of the baseball world learns this we will all be better off. Anyway, Ibanez somehow became a top free agent this offseason who a number of teams were targeting, the Mets and Phillies among them. I have been hoping for a while that the Mets wouldn't touch him considering I don't think he's that great and he really isn't a fit for the Mets as they need a right-handed bat and he is left-handed. So when I heard the Phillies signed him today I was relieved more than anything else. Sure it was an upgrade of sorts for the Phillies considering they needed to replace the nothing that Pat Burrell's vacancy created. Ibanez is going to be 37 this year and perhaps more importantly adds another left-handed bat to an already left-handed dominant lineup. I'd give more reasons about why this is a bad signing if Keith Law hadn't already written a scathing review of the signing. You can imagine my excitement when I read this as it says everything I felt about the move and much much more.

• Finally, we move away from baseball and get to a topic that I've been avoiding for at least a couple months now in hopes that it would resolve itself, this season of The Office. Before I get into this let me just say that I have been a fan of The Office from the very beginning. After forcing my friends to go see The 40 Year Old Virgin the summer it was released (an excellent call on my part) I tuned into the first season of the American Office mainly for Steve Carell. While the first season is nothing special, it was entertaining enough where I would download all the second season episodes since during their initial airings I was getting together with friends to watch the poor (but better on repeated viewings on SOAPnet) third season of The OC.

Personally, I think the second season is by far the best season of The Office. Every episode is solid, there's really not a stinker in the bunch. Additionally, it's not bogged down by any excessive Pam/Jim nonsense (I'm not saying this shouldn't exist at all, but this season featured the perfect balance of this and everything else on the show) and for the most part the show stayed within the confines of the actual office where it excels.

Then came the third season which is probably almost as good as the second. It's highs are certainly as good as those in the second season and the cast/crew did an excellent job of integrating new characters such as Andy Bernard into the mix. It was definitely a strong effort all around and when combined with the second season is likely the pinnacle of the show.

It's possible that the first major issues for the show came when they made the decision to start the fourth season with multiple hour long episodes. As nice as it was to have an extra half hour each week, it may have become too much for the writing staff to fulfill at this point. While I don't remember the specifics of all of these episodes, I do recall one of them focusing heavily on Michael's money woes. I believe this was the episode where Michael was shown to be working a second job, making cold calls to people's homes trying to sell diet pills. As interesting as this direction was for the show, it was kind of depressing. That said, the fourth season was OK overall and it probably would have been better had the writer's strike not thrown a wrench into things midway through it.

Which brings us to the fifth season. I actually just took a look at the episodes that have aired thus far and I definitely recognized some that I found pretty funny. I remember liking the initial weight loss episode, the one where Michael and Holly drive to New Hampshire with Darryl (which I recall was a very unpopular episode with a lot of people), and the one where Toby came back. Throughout most of the season some things have been bothering me though, and here they are in special numbered bullets:

1. The Dwight/Andy/Angela love triangle. I guess this was kind of funny at first, but I think at some point it crossed the line into just plain mean. At what point does watching Andy go around being clueless to this whole situation stop being funny and become simply pathetic. You could argue that's the whole point and that's a valid argument but that would work better if Dwight was still a funny character, which brings me to number 2.
2. Dwight isn't funny anymore, he's just a douche. Initially the character of Dwight was funny more so for his eccentricities than anything else. Yes, he was often abrasive coworkers but that was because he was too oblivious to know any better. Lately, his character has just been outwardly mean to those around him. I really can't think of anything particularly funny he has been involved with this season. His plot in the most recent episode was solely based around him screwing over lazy holiday shoppers which, while not really out of character, just wasn't funny. The best elements of it involved other characters (Michael knowing the slogan for the doll and Toby purchasing the black doll off of Daryll).
   
3. Why is all the Jim/Pam relationship stuff so dominant on the show? I understand this is a major draw for a lot of viewers but by now what is the point of spending so much time on their relationship? I think it's pretty safe to say they are going to live happily ever after. There have clearly been a couple "scares" implemented this season (Jim deciding not to drive all the way to New York to see Pam on a whim, Pam liking the house Jim bought) but none of them have developed into anything. One thing The Office doesn't have is a shortage of characters to use, all I'm saying is that some of that Jim/Pam time could be put to better use elsewhere. Also, arguably the worst subplot this season was Pam teaming up with Jim's brothers to play a prank on him. Nothing funny came out of that.
4. Getting rid of Holly. Michael's relationships with women have always been a highlight of the show. I really can't think of one that hasn't been hilarious (the real estate agent whose name escapes me at the moment, the girls from Benihana, Jan, etc.). His interactions with the HR girl Holly were no exception. It was also an added bonus to see him with someone who was so perfect for him. Getting rid of her was a poor decision that I would not be surprised to see rectified in the future. On the bright side I guess this resulted in Toby coming back, and we all know there's nothing wrong with that.
5. The last issue really ties all of the prior ones together I think. The show is becoming too much of a soap opera in general. The personal lives of the characters are nice every now and then, but when I tune into The Office the only thing I want out of it is laughs, that's it. I didn't find the scene during the latest episode where Phylis revealed that Dwight and Angela were sleeping together to be funny so much as really really awkward. Yes, awkward scenes are nothing new on this show but generally there are some laughs intertwined with that awkwardness. This time they were nonexistent...at least for me.

I really didn't mean to totally rip into the show here, I still like it and will continue to watch it every week, probably until the bitter end (remember this is a guy who watched the post-Duchovny 8th and 9th seasons of The X-Files as well as The Simpsons well past its expiration date). I'm just disappointed that I'm not enjoying it as much as I used to. There are probably some other factors in play behind the scenes that we're all unaware of. I haven't looked into it but I suspect the current writing staff is very different than that of previous years. The fact that Fire Joe Morgan's (R.I.P.) Ken Tremendous, better known as Michael Schur/Mose Schrute will be leaving the show in the near future is also not a good sign. I guess what really spurred this whole thing was when I realized I was looking forward to 30 Rock (which I like, but not to the extent of a say, Christian "The Butcher" Meola) than The Office. That could certainly change though, clearly I have an affinity for the show if I was able to write this much about it. I suppose it also helped that I have to get up tomorrow morning meaning I'm in for the night, oh well.

This is awesome.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1092613/Mothers-fury-Nintendo-Scrabble-game-taught-son-swear-words.html

I found this article to be hilarious, the short version is that a mother bought her eight-year-old son a Scrabble game for his Nintendo DS, unaware that the version featured words such as tits, toke, and shit along with definitions. Perhaps the best part of this story is when the game uses the word fuckers to get a triple word score and win, simply awesome.

"Girl you've got a ten piece please don't be stingy"

I've been meaning to eulogize a grand Thanksgiving tradition that lasted for six solid years (probably longer than anyone involved expected) but I haven't really given it enough thought yet. In the meantime I figured this space could be filled with videos.



I actually wanted to post about this when I saw it on Tuesday and in retrospect I really wish I did seeing as Pitchfork ended up putting it in the their Forkcast on Wednesday. I did come across it on the Modmouse.com forums on Tuesday though, whether or not you choose to believe that is entirely your call. The video is of Modest Mouse frontman (and Facebook interest of mine) Isaac Brock making a surprise appearance at a Broken Social Scene concert in Toronto last week and played a few Modest Mouse songs with BSS as backup. Among them were Paper Thin Walls, The Good Times Are Killing Me, and The World At Large (the song in the clip above). The owner of the blog also wanted me to link to his blog where the video originated so check it out when you get a chance.



According to wikipedia (and other music news outlets) Lily Allen's next album is due out in February. This is good news for me as I was pleasantly surprised by her last album and have enjoyed the new songs she has put up on her Myspace page. This is the latest song she has posted there, "The Fear". I actually prefer the other song on her Myspace, "Everyone's At It", more. I don't believe there is an actual music video for that song, however, so it did not make the cut. High standards here at Reliablog 2.0.



Now I complain a lot about commercials. Mostly the "Saved By Zero" campaign, but there are others sprinkled in as well. I'm not always so negative though. Every now and then there comes a commercial that can only be described as awesome. This new McDonalds commercial with the R&B crooner (Youtube's description, not mine) singing to his girlfriend about how he wants here to share her McNuggets is one of those. The whole thing is fantastic: the crooner standing in the rain, the backup vocals ("tip-toe tip", "you dippin on me?", "you went to McDonald's?"), and of the amazing line at the commercial's conclusion: "Girl you've got a ten piece please don't be stingy".

Be forewarned, if you're hanging out with me in the future and we're drinking (and in some cases when we're not) I will be singing this line repeatedly. Feel free to join in. I will also be singing it if we're in a McDonald's and especially if we're in a McDonald's after we've been drinking, which coincidentally is when I most frequent McDonald's.

There is only one way this commercial could be any better. Actually there's two ways: It could be longer, maybe have chapters ala Trapped In The Closet which it is clearly inspired by. By now you've probably guessed the other, original reason: it could feature musical genius R. Kelly.

And Yankee Fans Wonder Why Everybody Hates Them

This made me smile, and even laugh a little bit. It comes from Jim Callis's weekly chat at ESPN.com and it is a perfect example of the type of illogical trade proposals Yankee Fans come up with and submit in these chats and on sports talk radio.

Vito NYC: Jim, I have come to the conclusion that cole hamels would look awesome in yankee pinstripes...do you think a deal involving ian kennedy and melky cabrera along with a lesser prospect like coke, would be enought to pry him away from philly?

Jim Callis: If Yankees fans are going to keep sending silly trades, I guess I'll keep posting them. On this one, I'd say no chance in hell. Would the Yankees trade Joba Chamberlain for Jayson Werth, Kyle Kendrick and Clay Condrey? That would be a more equitable deal. Sheesh.

Where do I even start here? Ok, how about where Vito (perfect name for a stereotypical Yankee fan by the way) opens by saying he has "come to the conclusion that cole hamels would look awesome in yankee pinstripes". He must mean that he would aesthetically look awesome because I think it's safe to say that Cole Hamels would look "awesome" baseball skills-wise in any team's uniform, he's one of the ten best pitchers in all of baseball. Then of course there's the brilliant trade that Vito suggests: Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and lesser prospect for Hamels. This was maybe, MAYBE a feasible deal (albeit still a dumb one that Philly would likely reject) last offseason, or at least one that you could bring up in a silly chat at ESPN.com for argument's sake. Kennedy and Cabrera's stock have dropped so far in a year, however, that it is nowhere near a starting point anymore. Plus, take however much Ian and Melky's stock have dropped, add them together, and multiply it by two and you get how much Hamel's stock has risen in the past year. He had a great season and then pitched his team to a World Series Championship. But of course Yankee fans think they are entitled to the league's best players so they continue to suggest these absurd trade proposals. You'd think they could at least wait until Hamels is a free agent before they start fitting him for pinstripes.

Wow, that got a little wordy and out of hand in general there. I'm going to go get a drink of water.

Inventory

After having another pair of cheap Sony headphones crap out on me I decided to conduct a search for my good headphones yesterday. You might be wondering why I wasn't using the good headphones in the first place. That's a fair point to which there is a pretty legitimate explanation that I don't really feel like getting into right now. The point is, I tore my room apart yesterday in search of these headphones and in the process came across a number of amusing items. I figured I would keep an inventory of my favorites because, why not?

Oh, I should add that I eventually found the headphones in more or less the exact spot where I thought they'd be, making the entire search completely pointless in the end.

Inventory of Stuff I Found While Looking for the Headphones:

-Tons of pictures all of which are at least six or seven years old. I found more pictures from when I got to go onto the field at Shea Stadium and participate in a clinic with Roger Cedeno (before he got fat and slow), Turk Wendell (one of my favorite Mets at the time and all time), Cookie Rojas (sadly, probably my favorite Mets 3B coach; this isn't sad because he sucked or anything, it just speaks to how much I haven't liked the other 3B coaches), and Mike Kinkade (nicest thing I can say about Mike is that he was versatile in the field...sort of).

I also found pictures from my last visit to Yankee Stadium. Those probably aren't that old right? Wrong, try nine years old. It wasn't for lack of effort though, I wanted to go to Yankee Stadium one last time before it closed down but I never got around to it. Actually, I guess that is lack of effort.

My favorite set of pictures, however, were from the Model Congress/UN trips we used to go on in high school. Lots of unnecessary shaving cream usage and pictures of Xander Hancock rocking out to Metallica in there. I'm debating whether or not to put any of these sets of pictures up on Facebook seeing as I'm well aware that there is at least one photo in each group that will embarrass the person or persons in it.

-Numerous cards mostly from various birthdays. These were some of the more depressing items I came across solely because they made me feel extremely old. That's probably stemming from my birthday hangover as well though.

-Form letter from Al Gore from when we were all forced to write letters to him in sixth grade pleading to save the dolphins. Mr. Wallace, the sixth grade science teacher was certifiably insane. Speaking of certifiably insane I believe one Mexico Jones actually wrote his letter in favor of not saving the dolphins. I didn't think that was particularly funny back then because of the pro-dolphin propaganda that was being shoved down my throat; now I find it hilarious.

-Admissions materials from some colleges I applied to. I found this interesting solely because it made me wonder how things would be different if I had chosen to go to a different school. This is why someone needs to invent one of those portal things from Sliders where you could visit parallel universes. What's that? I was the only person who watched that show? Sorry, let's move on...

-A medal from winning an Edward 40-Hands competition junior year of college. Now before you go off thinking about how awesome/disgusting I am for winning, I should clear up a couple facts about this competition.

1. The competition was not particularly stiff. I was at least a 3:2 favorite going into it, if not more.

2. The forties weren't even malt liquor, they were different varieties of light beer I believe. Still, I won by a significant margin despite a late push by a couple other contestants.

-An old ballot from the 2000 All Star Game. This might be my favorite thing that I found. I thoroughly enjoy looking through all the names and seeing who was still active and starting in the 2000 season.

Some personal favorites included:
2B Homer Bush-Blue Jays
OF Butch Huskey-Twins
1B Rico Brogna-Phillies
SS Rey Ordonez-Mets
3B Fernando Tatis-Cardinals

And there's many more where those came from. I may have to fill out that ballot some time and send it in.

-A few more pairs of broken Sony headphones.

-Old high school report cards and schedules. I should keep the schedules by my bed in case I start having the recurring dream where I'm back in high school and I have no idea what my class schedule is again. Seriously, I've had this dream at least 40 times and now that I'm thinking about it I'm probably going to start having it again.

-Countless pairs of ridiculous sunglasses. It seems that I, along with many of my friends can not help ourselves from continuously acquiring absurd pairs of sunglasses. I found at least 7 or so during my search. Many of them were from the now defunct (R.I.P.) $1.29 store on the Seaside Heights boardwalk. Most of the pairs purchased there were obtained during the Summer of '02 which was also when the infamous "sunglasses picture" was taken.

And if anybody knows who the dude in front is, I would love to know.

Saved by Zero

I posted this on a friend's wall on Facebook, but I feel so strongly regarding this issue I'm going to put it here as well. It was in regards to my friend pointing out how amazing the backlash to Toyota's Saved By Zero ads have been.

"For more than a year people complained about the Mellencamp "This Is Our Country" commercials, not realizing that if you forced yourself to enjoy them (i.e. drank enough) they became awesome. Now, as karmic retribution for everyone whining about the Mellencamp ads we're stuck with these Saved By Zero ads which are by my calculations about 1,000x worse. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the backlash is justified."

Some related stuff from the anti-Saved By Zero Facebook group:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1860403,00.html

Mike Myers Should Be Shot

Back in the spring, advertising for the Mike Myers vehicle, “The Love Guru” was in full effect. If you didn't know that Mike Myers would be invading multiplexes across the country with a new silly accent you just weren't paying attention. Also, if you didn't know that this movie was no doubt going to suck you were an idiot. Former TRS? scribe Morrison Lewis and I, naturally, made a habit of constantly criticizing this movie (I should add that this was after a period where Lewis and others repeatedly harassed me about the movie, knowing that it's very existence was something I found irritating).

Eventually something strange began to happen though. Each of us, on our own accord, began to realize that at some point, we were going to have to see this movie. We didn't necessarily have to see “The Love Guru” in theaters, but we had to see it. As the movie bombed and the months passed leading up to the DVD release I became more and more excited to finally see what would almost certainly be a disaster of a film. It couldn't possibly disappoint. If it was somehow better than what we expected, we would have a pleasant surprise on our hands. If it was as bad as we expected, we would be prophets.

A few Sundays ago we watched The Love Guru.

Call me Nostradamus and call Morrison the Oracle of Fucking Delphi because “The Love Guru” may be the worst movie I have ever seen. It's certainly the worst attempt at a comedy.

So Morrison, our friend Gras, and I sat down to watch “The Love Guru”. Before we started the movie I decided it would be worthwhile to take some notes throughout. After all, I had a Sunday afternoon of football's worth of drinks in me and I wanted to have some clear talking points if I ever got into an argument about the guru, and there was almost no way in Hell I would ever watch this movie twice.

What follows are the notes I took with a few slight alterations so that they make sense. Anything in italics is additional commentary I am adding now.

6 minutes in, one blatantly racist joke, Jessica alba’s name on the screen made us wonder if we’d get to see her boobs.

Wishful thinking regarding the boobs obviously, Love Guru is PG-13. The next day, Morrison raised a good point about Jessica Alba, if she's in a movie there should be no question it's going to be awful.

Jessica Alba films I can come up with off the top of my head:

Good Luck Chuck

Into The Blue

Fantastic Four 1 & 2

watching this movie in a theater would be extremely awkward, considering nobody at all would be caught dead laughing at these “jokes”

14 minutes in, this movie just ripped off a family guy joke (electric factory) wasn’t funny then…

Now that I think about it, when Family Guy made fun of those Electric Factory segments with the silhouettes making compound words it was a little funny. When Mike Myers rips off Family Guy though, not so much...

in regards to an awful poop joke Gras: Artie Lange wrote a better movie than this.

That movie is Beer League, never saw it but I'd wager anything it's funnier than “The Love Guru”

20 minutes in, we are discussing worst movies we’ve ever seen, Battlefield Earth and Street Fighter are better, we get to quote Street Fighter AWESOME

That's the Jean Claude Van Damme/Raul Julia Street Fighter btdubs, great movie.

(the following quote is best read in your best Jean Claude Van Damme voice)

Colonel William F. Guile: [solemnly] Troopers, I just received new orders. Our superiors say the war is cancelled. We can all go home. Bison is getting paid off for his crimes, and our friends who have died here will have died for nothing. But, we can all go home. Meanwhile, ideals like peace, freedom, and justice, they get packed up. But, we can all go home.
[angrily]
Colonel William F. Guile: Well, I'm not going home. I'm gonna get on my boat, and I'm going up river, and I'm going to kick that son of a bitch Bison's ass so hard that the next Bison wannabe is gonna feel it! Now, who wants to go home... and who wants to go with me?
[the troopers cheer]

whats wrong with sharkskin

more like gayskin WHAT??????

I wish I remembered the context of this joke but it's escaping me at the moment. I do know that is an actual exchange in the movie though, I think it speaks for itself.

37% of this movie’s jokes are based on acrostic poems, the ones you write in 2^nd/3^rd grade

I did consult Morrison and Gras before coming up with the 37% figure FYI.

43 minutes in, we have our second truly racist joke of the movie (gospel dancing scene)
the aunt from family matters is playing romany malco’s mom, awesome?

It was good to see that Aunt Rachel is keeping busy, one of the highlights of the movie. Also, Romany Malco is the actor who plays hockey player Darren Roanoke in the film. If you haven't Googled him yet, he's the black guy from 40 Year Old Virgin and Conrad on Weeds.

Garcia correctly identified a diarrhea joke, 200 points!

Don’t know what I was talking about here, let’s move on.

Romany Malco eating chicken wings, pointed out, 3^rd racist joke

There were likely more racist jokes by this point, just so you know.

48 minutes in: Me: they really made this movie huh?

Gras: this is the worst movie I've ever seen

50 minutes in: “joke” based entirely on stupid hairdo for mike myers and cover of more than words…awful

51 minutes in: movie goes for easy, alley oop lighter joke during more than words

Following a sing along to Extreme’s “More Than Words” a bunch of people raise up their lighters. I’m pretty sure there could not possibly be a more predictable joke. I would think it’s safe to say that Mike Myers isn’t even trying at this point, but it’s really really hard to tell.

53 minutes in: 8 consecutive testicle jokes, none of which are funny, testicle jokes are extremely easy

got more laughs criticizing those testicle jokes than the entire movie has gotten thus far

Not even slightly exaggerating here, eight consecutive testicle jokes. That may not seem like a lot, but trust me, it’s a lot.

still no sign of alba’s naked breasts

I would say I come up with about seven new uses for a time machine each day of my life. Today’s third use would be to go back in time and tell myself at this point in the movie that her breasts are not coming and I should just turn it off. Of course if I did that I wouldn’t get to see the movie’s thrilling climax…

verne troyer (mini me ) just asked what the capital of thailand is, I said Bangkok obviously, guess what troyer said and, subsequently, did

He said Bangkok and then proceeded to hit Mike Myers in the balls. Get it? Bangkok, BANG COCK. This was mildly funny the first time you saw someone do it in junior high, nowadays, not so much. I have just come to the realization that Mike Myers’s movies could really only conceivably be funny to someone in Junior High. Additionally, I saw Austin Powers/still watched SNL regularly/thought Mike Myers was pretty funny in Junior High. Perhaps Myers is in some state of arrested development in which he can only write jokes/movies that only a Junior High School/Middle School aged male would find particularly funny. It’s entirely possible I’m onto something here, that or I’m blinded by my hatred for Mike Myers.

timberlake’s character is probably gay, which I expected about an hour ago. Also, I called the celine dion cameo before the movie even started, well, not really, but close enough.

I believe I may have made a comment about Celine Dion showing up early on in the movie, hence my close enough comment. Also, I’m not sure if JT’s character being gay is supposed to be a twist or not. It’s telegraphed pretty blatantly so that may have been the point. Regardless, I couldn’t be less interested in going back and verifying this.

cornershop’s brimful of asha serves as the soundtrack to the maple leafs game’s 4 and 5 comebacks MAJOR PLUS

The only good thing that came out of this movie (besides greeting people by putting my hands together, bowing, saying “Mariska Hartigay”, and seeing the looks I get) was how it rejuvenated my interest in this song/album. I was inspired to upload this album to my iPod and as a result this song got a lot of play in the following couple weeks.

UNNECESSARY PLOT MECHANISM? (suitcase)

A suitcase comes into play late in the movie. I took a wild guess and assumed it would be entirely unnecessary to the plot. It was.

70 minutes in, another racist joke regarding outsourcing and Indian people taking said jobs, dell computers

This might have been the only sign in the entire movie that Mike Myers is aware that it’s 2008.

missed a major plot point regarding alba making a move on myers and myers denying her due to some chastity belt bullshit

You have to love a good chastity belt joke. I guess Mike Myers has seen Robin Hood: Men In Tights. It was released in 1993 after all.

just realized verne troyer (mini me) is supposed to be the coach of the maple leafs, whoops

PREDICTABLE MIDGET JOKE SAVES THE DAY?!!!

Don’t remember the specifics of this joke but I assure you it wasn’t funny.

Nope, elephant looks like it will save the day.

Elephants are banging on the other end of the ice to distract romany malco, (it’s part of an acrostic poem)!

It makes perfect sense that the climax of the movie would somewhat revolve around an acrostic poem.

Colbert just made a post-ejaculation joke, should be funny, isn’t..

Steven Colbert was one of, if not the most disappointing parts about the whole movie. He’s a pretty funny guy generally and you’d think he’d be able to slip at least one or two good lines in there. Sadly this is not the case. His jokes flop just as bad as any others.

ROMANY MALCO SCORES!!!! UNBELIEVABLE! THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS HAVE WON THE STANLEY CUP!!!

MIKE MYERS AND KANYE WEST APPEAR IN THE MOVIE! MYERS HITS THE UNDER ON HOW MANY CHARACTERS HE WILL PLAY IN THIS MOVIE.

What I mean here is that Mike Myers plays himself. He is sitting next to Kanye at Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals since he’s a big Maple Leafs fan. I think we had set the over/under on how characters Myers was going to play at 2.5 in case you were wondering. We all took the over.

Deepak chopra cameo, that must’ve been expensive.

Yep, that was probably most of the budget actually. I’ve gotten to the point here where I can’t even tell if I’m being sarcastic or not, time to wrap this up. Hopefully, this movie ends soon.

Please let this movie be over, at 1 hour and 20.

…almost there…

Awful rendition of steve miller band’s the joker closes out the movie, ouch.

Blatantly stealing a page out of Judd Apatow’s playbook here. Sorry Mike, we’ve all seen The 40 Year Old Virgin, many of us multiple times. It’s also about 40.000 times funnier than The Love Guru by the way.

Gras: that was absolutely the worst movie I’ve ever seen in history, and I’ve seen a lot of movies.

Morrison: *laughs* I’m speechless, it’s just…I never thought that they could, there would be a comedy…they couldn’t make anyone come remotely close to laughter. Mike Myers should be shot.

In case you think that we were biased or went into the movie expecting it to be awful and ended up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy I would like to end with a few notes about the movie from other sources:

-The Love Guru has an IMDB user rating of 3.8 out of 10, which is absolutely atrocious, especially when you consider how many people out there have bad taste in movies.

-The Love Guru has a Metacritic score of 24 (generally negative reviews) with its highest score being a 75 from The Christian Science Review.

-Metacritic attributes three zeros to The Love Guru, from Slate.com, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Times reviewer A.O. Scott has what may be my favorite quote regarding the movie. I like it partially for its comedic value (it’s funnier than anything in the movie for sure) and partially for its veracity. I also think it’s a good note to go out on.

“To say that the movie is not funny is merely to affirm the obvious. The word ‘unfunny’ surely applies to Mr. Myers’s obnoxious attempts to find mirth in physical and cultural differences but does not quite capture the strenuous unpleasantness of his performance. No, ‘The Love Guru’ is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.”

-A.O. Scott 6/20/2008

A Rock BANecDote/Another Reason AC/DC Sucks

This past weekend, during a solid Rock Band session it was decided to take on one of the various pre-decided set lists that are offered to you during the tour mode. If I remember correctly, the particular one that we had chosen was five songs long. For those of you unfamiliar with the intricacies of the game, the goal of the set lists is to simply pass all of the songs they are made up of. I believe we had made it to the fourth song of this set list when we had to play AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock". While I've never been a fan of AC/DC (in fact, I would consider myself to be a detractor) I figured that this song wouldn't pose too much of a problem, at least not in the way it eventually did.

I was actually sitting this song out at first, so I saw fit to make a trip to the bathroom. As I was relieving myself I heard Morrison Lewis yelling at me about how I had to hear the lyrics to the song they were playing. As I listened to Morrison through the bathroom door I thought to myself about how there was no way the lyrics to "Let There Be Rock" could be as bad as he was saying there were.

Shortly after I stepped out of the bathroom, however, the band failed the song. I offered my services to try and sing the song in hopes that we could get through it. But as I began to sing the song I realized I had made a mistake. The lyrics to the song were as bad (if not worse) than advertised. I was literally having trouble making it through lines of the song without breaking down laughing, and it only got worse as the song went on. The lyrics were that bad. Here, take a look for yourself:

Lyrics I find particularly ridiculous in bold

In the beginning
Back in nineteen fifty-five
Man didn't know about a rock 'n' roll show
And all that jive
The white man had the schmaltz
The black man had the blues
No one knew what they was gonna do
But Tchaikovsky had the news
He said -
"Let there be sound", there was sound
"let there be light", there was light
"Let there be drums", there was drums
"Let there be guitar", there was guitar
"Let there be rock"
And it came to pass
That rock 'n' roll was born
All across the land every rockin' band
Was blowing up a storm
And the guitarman got famous
The businessman got rich
And in every bar there was a super star
With a seven year itch
There were fifteen million fingers
Learning how to play
And you could hear the fingers picking
And this is what they had to say
"Let there be light"
"Sound"
"Drums"
"Guitar"
"Let there be rock"
One night in a club called `The Shaking Hand'
There was a ninety-two decibel rocking band
And the music was good and the music was loud
And the singer turned and he said to the crowd -
"Let there be rock"

After another failure on the song in no small part by yours truly, Morrison gave the vocals another go. Fortunately they passed the song this time, and that's the story of the last time we ever played AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock" in Rock Band.

Some Pre-All Hallow's Eve Notes

I just got back from a last minute run to the supermarket to pick up candy for tomorrow and I have a few observations to drop, as well as a couple more videos.

-Did you have any idea that Halloween candy becomes scarce by Oct. 30? I figured that there would still be plenty of options but that was not the case. Fortunately I was able to get some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, Three Musketeers, and the latest creation featuring Reese's Peanut Butter, don't really recall what it's called and I don't care enough to go look at the bag.

-There was a sign at the entrance of King's stating that they apologized for the inconvenience, but they would not be selling eggs, shaving cream, or toilet paper to anyone under the age of 21. Obviously this is because tonight is Cabbage Night (at least that's what it's called around here, I know it is sometimes referred to as Mischief Night or something else in other areas). Earlier today I was thinking about how my parents never let me go out on Cabbage Night when I was a kid. This always frustrated in me but, in retrospect I appreciate it and realize they were completely in the right. Why would they even consider letting their kids go out, be brats, and potentially get in trouble with the police. If I ever have kids I will most certainly do the same. Just another depressing sign that there is nothing I can do to avoid becoming my parents...

-The Stop & Shop had Phillies signs for sale at the supermarket. I understand they won the World Series but this North Fucking Jersey, not Phillies country at all. If the Eagles ever (God forbid) win a Super Bowl and there is Eagle gear being sold in the area I will register a complaint with corporate.

The first video is a seasonal one, a video for The Clash's City of the Dead featuring Casper the Friendly Ghost. A little bit morbid but the song is catchy so it's all good.



Second, we have a video that I have been pimping out quite a bit lately. It's from some AOL Sessions thing that Weezer did a few months ago and quite frankly, it's probably the best thing Weezer has done in about ten years or so. After much deliberation I've become pretty sure that this is likely the best song they've done since Pinkerton. I should also add that it's also a B-Side for the latest album and that version is solid as well. If they ever get tired of making albums that will never equal their finest works, perhaps Rivers & Co. should look into performance art.

Alex Trebek Is A Douche

I think these videos speak for themselves for the most part.

A Short List Of People I'd Like To Never Hear About Again

Chase Utley
Sarah Palin
Brett Favre

Keith Law Continues To Tell It How It Is

ESPN columnist/blogger/pundit and Facebook friend of mine Keith Law has spent the past year or so becoming by far my favorite employee of the network. I look forward to his weekly chat every Thursday and am never disappointed. In this afternoon's chat he responded to a question regarding Fox baseball commentator Tim McCarver's incessant harping on Manny Ramirez throughout the NLCS:

zach (Brooklyn): Isn't the kind of hero worship Brett Myers has been getting this postseason disgusting given what Tim McCarver said about Manny - who never beat his wife up outside Fenway, whatever his faults, or what others were saying about, say, Milton Bradley or Lastings Milledge all year?

Keith Law: (2:14 PM ET ) What's the difference between Myers and Manny/Bradley/Milledge? I can think of one thing...

Another excellent point from Mr. Law that bolstered (for me) by the fact that I despise Brett Myers and think he is a sorry excuse for a human being. Keep up the good work Keith.

Put this in the rumored Google Phone and I'm sold.

During my junior year of college I took a TV Production class. One of our first assignments was to come up with an advertisement for something. After not too much debate, my group ended up making a commercial for a product that was essentially a breathalyzer for your cell phone, I think it was called the "Drunk Dialer" or something like that. As you can probably figure out for yourself, the purpose was to prevent drunk dialing. In the years since that class there have been many times in my life where I wish such a product not only existed, but came standard with all Samsung phones. Nobody likes that sinking feeling you get the next day when you look at your outgoing calls and think to yourself "I called him/her, what the Hell was I thinking?"

All hope is not lost, however, apparently the geniuses at Google are making headway towards such technology. Today I learned of a new feature in Gmail called Mail Goggles, the purpose of which is to prevent people from sending drunk emails. While this has never really been a problem for yours truly, I very much appreciate the innovation here. Basically what it does is ask you to solve a series of math problems after you hit the send button. If you get them correct your message will be sent and I assume the opposite happens if you get them wrong. Additionally, the default settings for this feature are late at night on the weekends, though they can be adjusted with in the settings. You can read all about the feature here. As for those of you who are skeptical as to whether this actually exists, I just went into my Gmail and confirmed it.

Now Google just needs to implement this technology into cell phones and I'll be good to go, like a Crunchwrap Supreme.

Mr. Jones and Me Tell Each Other Fairy Tales

Let me say right off the bat that I spent a couple minutes debating whether to use lyrics from the Counting Crows or Talking Heads song titled Mr. Jones. It was a tough call, but I went with one the common man would appreciate.

The Mr. Jones I am referring to in the title of this post is TRS?'s very own Mexico Jones. You see, Mexico has come to the Metropolitan Area today in order to attend the annual Highwoods Frisbee Golf Tournament. He also made no plans as to what to do once he arrived at JFK International Airport. I asked one of his housemates repeatedly throughout the past couple weeks if he would be needing a ride but was rebuffed by said housemate every time, told that it was taken care of. Despite these proclamations I was not surprised to learn via text message a few hours ago that Mexico didn't really have a plan concerning what to do when he landed. Mexico and I eventually settled upon me picking him up in Hoboken, but that was over an hour ago and I have yet to hear from him again. In the meantime I figured I would write about one of the funniest lines I have ever heard someone say. You can probably already figure out who said it.

It happened during last year's Highwood's Tournament. A group of us had all headed into the woods to go "set up the tent" (this has become a euphemism for other activities over the years, though there is always an effort to set up a tent or tents) in the woods. As we set one of the tents up we were treated to a suffocatingly awful smell from the interior of it. Mexico summed up it better than any of us by saying "It smells like the Devil's balls."

I don't know why, but that line had me in stitches at the moment and still makes me laugh to this day. Maybe the mental image of Lucifer's testicles and what is most certainly a rank smell that they exude is something I find particularly hilarious.

I think the line would have been received better had more people been listening to Mexico so I made sure to take note of it at that very moment. Nowadays it lives on in my Facebook profile, waiting for it to strike again, perhaps this weekend.

ISO: Catharsis

I would like to make the promise that this will be the last Mets-Related post for the next few months, however, I came to the realization that doing so would be incredibly short-sighted. I do hope that is indeed the case though. I do not particularly want to spend much time in the coming days, weeks, months, etc. giving much thought to the Mets, so naturally, I don't want to be writing about them as well. But considering the last post I made to this blog concerned the Mets' historically atrocious September play, and over the weekend I was (un)lucky to have the opportunity to attend what will go down as the last game in Shea Stadium history, I should probably put one last exclamation point on this season. The only question is where do I start? How about we go full circle and start in September 2007...

I may or may not have written this in the past, but when the media discusses last year's collapse, they seem to paint the picture of a Mets fanbase that was shocked when they ended up missing out on the playoffs in the end. While I'm sure this was the case for many, I feel comfortable saying that there were more than a few Mets fans that were bracing themselves for disappointment. The Mets had been playing inconsistent, lackadaisacal baseball since June and anyone who watched the team regularly was well aware that this was not the same team that came within a game of the World Series in 2006. When the final weekend of 2007 came around I was left with the decision of staying in the area and watching the Mets try and salvage their season, or go with my family to visit my sister at college in North Carolina. I ended up going with the latter and have no regrets. Sure, one could make the argument that I am not a true fan or something like that, but I weighed the pro's and con's and made what I believe was the correct decision. Additionally, anybody who knows me at all knows that my fanhood of any of my favorite teams does not deserve to come into question.

Which brings us to a year later.

I think my previous blog post sums up my feelings about my confidence in the 2008 Mets well enough where I don't have to get back into it. The short version is that I was not very confident they would play well in September as that is something they rarely do. After an up and down final week of the season and a loss Friday night, the Mets found themselves a game out of the Wild Card, no longer with destiny in their hands. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who had the foresight to purchase tickets to what had the potential t0 (and eventually became) the final game at Shea Stadium. Going into Saturday's game I told those around me that I didn't even feel like going anymore. Then Johan Santana threw a three hit shutout on three days rest and the Cubs beat the Brewers later that afternoon and all of a sudden the Wild Card was tied again and I could not be more pumped for Sunday's game. I was in awe of Santana's performance (seriously, I could not stop talking about it) and how he had single-handedly re-energized me (and I assumed the team).

The next morning nine of us gathered at my friends' apartment to meet up before the game. I had been planning on suggesting another viewing of the Super Bowl (brilliantly saved onto my friend's DVR) but as I walked into the apartment with Mike I quickly learned they had already fired it up. Surely this could only be construed as a good sign, no? Apparently not, as a bad omen was just around the corner.

As we stood on the platform at Grand Central, waiting for the 7 train, one of our crew was busted for drinking a beer on the platform. In the end this proved to be less of a nuisance than initially suspected as the fine was a mere $25 (approximately 1200% less than Manasquan, NJ prices) and we'd left early enough where missing a couple trains was hardly an issue. Still, not a good sign. Although on the bright side this did not end up hindering most of us from drinking beer on the subway, turns out the blue New York Times plastic covering makes a great brown bag substitute.


Shortly after arriving at Shea and heading to the Upper Deck where our seats were located we learned that first pitch would be delayed 40 minutes or so due to the weather. Naturally we did what any other red-blooded American would do, drink Budweiser.

2:00 eventually rolled around and we settled in our seats to watch them play some of the game they call baseball. Mets starter Oliver Perez ended up exceeding my expections, going 5 1/3 innings and allowing 2 runs on three days rest. The highlight of the game definitely came when Carlos "unclutch" Beltran hit a two run homer to tie the game in the bottom of the 6th. Shea got louder than Citi Field will probably ever be, and the Mets were alive for at least a little longer. Eventually Jerry Manuel made the inexplicable decision to bring in LHP Scott Schoeneweis (almost did that without having to check the spelling, forgot the second "e" though) to face the right-handed hitting Wes Helms in the 8th despite Schoeneweis's .327 BA against righties. Of course Helms ended up hitting a homerun giving the Marlins a lead they would never relinquish. I know it's going to happen and that he did a pretty good job helping the team bounce back this year, but I'm not crazy about Jerry Manuel as the manager of this team and I would've liked for them to at least explore other options, just had to get that off my chest.

The game was probably truly over once the 8th inning had been completed. The Mets had wasted an opportunity with the tying runs on base and the heart of the order at the plate. When the bottom of the 9th rolled around I really had to pee and I made the decision to get a head start on my last Shea Stadium urinal visit if there were two outs and nobody on. Of course that ended up being the case, and I ended up watching the final out on one of the tv's in the concourse. Once it was truly over I walked to look out on the field one final time and listen to the boo's rain down on this team as they had so many times before this season. I then got out of there as quickly as possible and made sure to raise my middle finger towards the stadium as the 7 train pulled away. Yes, I had lots of great memories within those walls, but there are plenty of bad ones too, and I'm not that sad to see the place go.

So now what? I really don't have much interest in discussing this team in any capacity. Ideally, I would put them out of my mind until something newsworthy happens. That's pretty hard to do though. I was able to successfully go all day Monday without listening to a single word on WFAN. I only made it until about 3:00 though, but to be fair I was hoping they would be talking about football. Hopefully I can continue to limit my listening as the weeks go on as I am making a concerted effort to not engage in things that I either actively detest or piss me off (perhaps more on this initiative at a later date). What I could really use though is some form of catharsis. Hopefully this post is the first step in that process because everything else I have tried thus far (drinking, running, eating, etc.) hasn't worked. Usually, one of the ways I get over the Mets season ending is by rooting hard against the Yankees in the postseason. Clearly that's not an option this year though I suppose the Phillies and Red Sox could do an ok job taking their place.

But what is to become of the three or so hours that usually get dedicated to watching the Mets most evenings? Frankly, I have no idea, hopefully some of that time can be spent maintaining this blog and whipping it into shape. One thing is for sure, I will no longer have the Mets to distract me.

The Same Old Story

It looks like we're in the middle of another Mets September Swoon for the second straight year. It has officially gotten to the point where I want the Mets to make the playoffs more for the reason that I don't want to have to hear about a "September Collapse" from the media rather than wanting them to have a shot to win a World Series. I also really really really hate the Phillies.
Here's the thing that the media has completely overlooked throughout all of this though. The Mets ALWAYS play poorly in September. This is not a recent development at all. In 1999, when the Mets made the playoffs for the first time in 11 years, they almost blew the Wild Card down the stretch in September, having to come back from the dead on the last weekend against the Pirates and then win a one game playoff in Cincinnati. They also blew a Wild Card lead in 1998 and faded down the stretch in 1997. Even 2006, when the Mets ran away with the division, shouldn't be overlooked. Does anyone remember how long it took the Mets to clinch the division. They got swept in Pittsburgh by a rancid baseball team and had to come back to Shea to pour the champagne.
I'm not trying to trivialize how awful it would be if the Mets were to blow a division lead in September for the second straight year. It would be awful, I know. All I'm saying is that poor September from the Metropolitans is nothing new. There is still time to rewrite the script though, and hopefully this team can do just that.

Matty Ice?

Someone in an NFL chat with Keith Kidd at Espn.com today referred to Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Matt Ryan as Matty Ice today. If this ends up being Ryan's nickname, I will absolutely become a Matt Ryan fan.

Bill Simmons stole my Giants prediction.

I wanted to write something longer and I may revisit this in the future, but I need to catch a train to go watch the Giants game and I wanted to get this in before the game was over. I have been predicting for months the Giants would be 7-9 this season (ask anyone who knows me if you don't believe it), I probably said it first merely weeks after the Super Bowl. In his NFL preview column today, Bill Simmons had the Giants at 7-9 as well. He stole my prediction. That is all. For now.

Luggage Theft

I don't have time for a post of any substantial length but being well aware that an update is necessary I figured I should at least throw up a link or something. Anyway, I just story on ESPN.com about new Detroit Lions RB claiming that the man he will be replacing, Tatum Bell, stole his luggage from the team's practice facility. Personally, I find this to be hilarious, you may feel differently though if you're sensitive about luggage being stolen or something.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3567561

Los Lobos Kick Your Butt Los Lobos Kick Your Face Los Lobos Kick Your Ass Into Out-Er Space

A couple years ago Mets general manager Omar Minaya was criticized for focusing on Latino baseball players while constructing his baseball team. This became an overblown controversy in the sports media as so many things often do for quite a while. Personally, I think the whole thing was nonsense for the most part. Minaya wants good baseball players on his team and believe or not, many good baseball players happen to be from Latin countries. Crazy that Minaya would want to put together a good, talented baseball team right? Although if one were to follow a team like the Washington Nationals or Kansas City Royals they might think that it is crazy.

During a late summer evening last year I had Mexico Jones over at my house and I asked him to take a look at the Mets jersey's and tell me what he thought about them. The Mets were having Latino Night or Fiesta Latina, I forget what it was called. To mark the occasion they were normal Mets jerseys with one notable exception, the word "Los" was put in front of Mets so it wrote "Los Mets". I thought this was funny because of the whole aforementioned scenario. This is certainly not the way to avoid all that garbage ever coming up again.

I bring this up because when I heard that tonight at Shea would be another Latino Night/Fiesta Latina I naturally thought back to that fateful night and those fateful jerseys. I looked up at my television to see Johan Santana long-tossing in the outfield and what else was he wearing but a "Los Mets" jersey.

I'm usually a good speller.

I've spent the last few minutes trying to download songs for a playlist/cd I'm making. One of the songs I've been looking for is "Still Fly" by Big Tymers. I searched a couple of places and typed out "Big Tymerz" assuming that was how it was spelled. That is not the case, however. It's spelled "Big Tymers". I don't know why, but I thought this was really funny.

Lost in the Supermarket

Some observations from a recent trip to the supermarket in (what else?) bullet form:

• The first couple things I noticed were in the cereal aisle. Apparently there is a new charm added to the Lucky Charms roster, the hourglass. I'm not quite sure what the significance of this is (how is an hourglass lucky?), but I found it interesting nonetheless. That said, I think there are too many types of Lucky Charms these days. Back in the day it was a huge deal when we got the red balloon to up the number of charms to six or so. Nowadays it seems like they add a new one every other year. Oh well, I went through my Lucky Charms phase a few years ago and never looked back. My parents would never buy us any sugary cereals when we were kids so I got all the Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs out of my system in college. I recently had Cocoa Krispies though, and they were pretty fantastic.

• Something else that caught my eye in the cereal aisle was an advertisement for a free American flag on a Corn Flakes box. For some reason I felt inclined to take a closer look at the offer, perhaps the Olympics have me feeling a little extra patriotic. Turns out it was hardly an offer for a free flag. It required a ten dollar donation to Camp C.O.P.E., a camp for children with parents in the armed forces. I'm by no means trying to say I am opposed to the camp or people donating to it, I just thought the word "free" was a bit misleading. What it most likely comes down to is that fact that I'm a dick.

• Finally, while walking towards the end of the juice/bread product aisle I was a bit surprised to see that the Halloween decorations/merchandise was on full display. Call me old-fashioned, but is it crazy to wait until at least August 31st, when Halloween is a full two months away before we start pimping Halloween stuff at the supermarket. That is, unless there is an upcoming shortage of plastic Jack-O-Lanterns that I was unaware of. We are in a recession and all. But who needs those things anyway? They don't hold nearly enough candy. A pillow case is a far superior option.
  

Well This Sucks...

No I'm not talking about the Mike and the Mad Dog breakup again, although that sucks as well. Unfortunately, I just learned that Craig Robinson, better known as Darryl from The Office or the bouncer from Knocked Up, was arrested on June 29th for possession of a variety of drugs with Meth and Ecstasy being among them. TMZ has all the information at the moment here. Hopefully this doesn't affect Robinson's appearances on The Office next season, Darryl was always one of my favorite characters.

The End of an Era

Chris "Mad Dog" Russo

I'm not sure if I ever made more than a brief reference to my unhealthy sports talk radio listening habits at the old Reliablog, but they're very real. Today they took a blow along with the whole New York talk radio landscape. After weeks of rumors and speculation, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, longtime co-host (along with Mike Francesa) of the "Mike and the Mad Dog" program on WFAN was released from his contract with the station today. Russo has always been a lightning rod for criticism during his tenure at WFAN for a variety of reasons including but not limited to his constant mispronunciations, egging on of listeners/callers, and flat out ridiculous statements. Whether you loved or hated the Mike and the Mad Dog show though, you were lying if you didn't admit that it was often compelling radio.

Russo & Francesa aka "Mike & the Mad Dog"

For a long time I was one of many people who constantly talked shit about the show, claiming that Russo and Francesa were both clueless morons who went out of their way to tweak fans of all the area sports teams. Now I actually don't think any part of the sentence I just wrote is incorrect. What made me appreciate the show, however, was two things. First off, I went to school in the Philadelphia area and got a taste of what Philly sports radio is like: all Eagles, all the time. Yes, Mike and the Mad Dog had the tendency to focus more on baseball than anything else (not necessarily a bad thing for big baseball fans like myself, but I can certainly see why people would take issue with this), but for the most part they did a good job of getting around to the entire local and national sports landscape, with the exception of hockey.

As soon as I realized that part of the entertainment of the show was listening to the ridiculous spectacle of it all (particularly the callers) I was able to enjoy it much more. Like it or not, the show was a barometer for the New York sports scene and was extremely influential on the opinions of tens of thousands of (less than intelligent) sports fans. This phase of my listening to the show was greatly aided by reading the message boards at mikefrancesa.com, a website dedicated to the duo which features threads for every show where readers poke fun at the hosts, callers, etc. everyday. To say it's an acquired taste would be an understatement, but for those who enjoy it and get all the stupid inside jokes it's pretty fantastic.

With Russo out of the picture Francesa received a contract extension today and will continue to hold the 1-6:30 timeslot at WFAN. Many people will say (me among them) that Francesa made a power play to get rid of Russo as they both admitted that relations were strained between them. It has been rumored for awhile that Russo would move to Sirius if the two were to break up and that is still the word on the street. As for me, I highly doubt this will encourage me to subscribe to satellite radio, there isn't a sports radio host in the world that could get me to do that. As a result I will probably continue to listen to WFAN and rue the day that we got stuck with two ridiculously pompous Yankee fans on the two major sports talk radio stations during drive time (Michael Kay on ESPN radio being the other one). Today is indeed a sad day in my mind, truly the end of an era.

A Couple Observations (aka there is nothing good on tv)

The past ten minutes of channel surfing have given me two things I considered blogging about. One is never enough, but two, that's practically a gold mine.

1. I saw a commercial for the DVD of the movie "Smart People" a few minutes ago. In case you missed this movie (which is very possible seeing as I don't recall it being in theaters for very long), it appears to be a dramedy with Ellen Page, Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church, and Horseface...I mean Sarah Jessica Parker. It's billed as from the producer of "Sideways" and frankly, judging by the cast and trailer I think the producers of this movie should have been much more transparent and named it "Pretentious Movie".

Guy Fieri: Host of Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives

2. Now I'm not a big watcher of The Food Network generally, but I do find myself watching the show Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives every now and then. You may recognize the host of the show, Guy Fieri, from those stupid T.G.I. Fridays commercials where he interrupts your "meal" and tells you to hit on the attractive females at the next table. Clearly Guy doesn't realize that I've been thinking about saying something to those girls all night only the thing is, I lack what the common man calls "balls".

Anyway, the show is basically what the title implies, Fieri travels the country and visits various diners, hole in the wall places, etc. that are notorious for their food. It's pretty entertaining usually but the reason I got sucked in was an episode on New Jersey where they went to a favorite haunt of mine, White Manna in Hackensack. I also ended going to a diner in Jersey City that was featured in that episode for their pancakes as well. Unfortunately, I realized immediately after I placed my order there that I don't really like pancakes all that much. The pancakes were pretty good in the end though.

What I noticed as the show went to commercial was that it was sponsored by The Olive Garden. All I could think was why would any show on The Food Network be sponsored by The Olive Garden. I have never been to an Olive Garden and I made a decision a while ago to never visit one ever. I've heard nothing but vile things about the food and the idea of a chain Italian restaurant makes me borderline nauseous. It just makes no sense to me why The Food Network would use them as a sponsor, besides the almighty dollar of course.

One Reason To Watch The Olympics

I'm not a really a big fan of the Olympics despite being a huge sports fan in general but there are a couple events that I will try to watch. One of them is the United States Men's Basketball Team. Initially there were a couple reasons that I would try and follow this team, I like basketball and I want to see the team redeem themselves after the Athens disaster in 2004. Approximately 15 minutes ago though, I was able to add a third reason.

NBC's coverage of men's basketball (and hopefully women's as well) features the NBA on NBC theme song.

In case that didn't fully register, let me reiterate: NBC's coverage of men's basketball (and hopefully women's as well) features the NBA on NBC theme song.

Several years ago, NBC was THE place you went to for NBA games. Every weekend they would have games and when the playoffs rolled around it was the place to go for awesome double and sometimes tripleheaders. This all came to an end in 2002 when the NBC Sports's contract with the NBA ran out and ABC stepped in to purchase the broadcast rights to NBA games. At first I didn't think this would be that big of a deal. I soon realized that it was. You see, the end of the NBA on NBC meant the end of the NBA on NBC theme music.

In case you don't remember the NBA on NBC music you can bask in its glory below.




Pretty awesome, right?

Now that I know that NBC is using this music for the Olympics I will be doing everything in my power to watch every game I can. Still won't watch gymnastics though, unless they start using the NBA on NBC theme as well.