DANA JACOBSON, WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Dana Jacobson is an ESPN anchor (or so they tell me, I don't watch the channel enough to have seen her) who recently got into a bit of trouble. Allegedly, she got rip-roaring drunk at something called "The Mike & Mike in the Morning Celebrity Roast" (some self-congratulatory piece of shit ESPN function), got up on stage and dropped some F-bombs. She said something to the effect of "Fuck Notre Dame, fuck Touchdown Jesus, fuck Jesus". This apparently "embarrassed" ESPN (as if their horrendous programming isn't doing that job already) and forced them to give her a week's vacation.

(Before anyone gets outraged about these out of context remarks, remember that this is a roast, so there's bound to be some off-color remarks made. And even if she said this to Jesus' face, I believe he would forgive her. So basically, you bunch of overly sensitive PC pussies, get a fucking sense of humor.)

Anyway, this is what I know about her:

1) She's 36 and single
2) She's a sports fan
3) She's tall (reports have her as being anywhere from 5'9" to 6')
4) She loves Belvedere vodka
5) She hates Notre Dame
6) She can't endure worthless banter surrounding two completely uninteresting sports radio hosts while sober

What's not to like about this woman? I'm trying to find a fault and I really can't, except for her employer (but who am I to talk?). Some internet trolls have declared her "unattractive", but I can only assume they are all capable of dating supermodels when they're not commenting on Deadspin and downloading hentai porn.

What I'm trying to say is . . . Dana, will you marry me?

(Feel free to leave your answer in the comments.)

UPDATE: Baseball Musings found this fantastic picture. How can you beat that?

€5 BILLION FRAUD: AN ISOLATED INCIDENT BY A ROGUE TRADER

Holy Shit: I so wish that the French weren't spinning this story and that one person was capable of defrauding one of the largest banks in the country for almost 5 billion euros.

Unfortunately, you can't believe anything the French say especially when it's related to money and/or illegal/fraudulent activities.

2007 NFC CHAMPION GIANTS: TYNES IS MONEY

Game winning kicks like this bring out the punsters. These are the worst I could come up with (which means I'm sure some of these have been used):

IT'S ABOUT TYNES!
TYNES IS MONEY!
FOURTH TYNES A CHARM!
OVER-TYNES WINNER!
TYNES TO MAKE THE DONUTS!
TYNES ARE THOSE POINTY THINGS ON A FORK!



That will never, ever get old.

Some things I learned this Sunday:

1. Fuck you, Joe Buck, for calling this exciting end to a thrilling game like you were reading the Starbucks coffee menu. It almost sounds like you were disappointed by the outcome. Your father, Jack Buck, was a legendary announcer. You sir, are a twunt. (We should make the use of this word a regular OH blog feature.)

2. Plaxico Burress sure can have a huge game when he wants to. Enjoy watching Plaxico make Pro Bowl safety Al Harris his bitch. I know I did!

3. The officiating in the NFL is still horrendous. This highlight reel mentions Sam Madison's personal foul call, a mysterious penalty which was somehow missed by all 34 FOX cameras and therefore, as Rob postulated, doesn't exist. Also Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film: Chris Snee's holding call, which erased a go-ahead 4th quarter Bradshaw TD.

4. Speaking of Bradshaws, Terry was the only broadcaster who actually picked the Giants to win. But then again, he's insane.

5. I've heard/seen this 100 times already this week: no one gives a shit that Eddie Murphy predicted the outcome of this game 20 years ago in "Coming To America". And your opinion is wrong, as the movie was not funny.

6. God, I fucking hate the two week break before the BIG GAME. To avoid litigation, Rob has suggested we call it HYPER-MATCH 101010. That would look great on a T-shirt.

7. I love my dad, but watching a game with him multiplies the agony and frustration by a factor of 100.

8. FOX spent more time promoting Tom Petty's halftime show than the actual game. What are his fans called, PETTYPHILES?

WORD OF THE WEEK: TWUNT

The Urban Dictionary says that this word's been around for a while (since 2000 according to some accounts); all I know is that I just ran into it and I like it.

twunt [twuhnt] noun:

"James Mangold is a fucking twunt."

(It needed to be said)

Hiya Jimmy-boy (assuming your Google Blogs search for your own name hits on this post).

GIANTS FOOTBALL: UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE

I think the word for this would be UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE.

It’s Good, and Giants Head to Super Bowl



Yes, this is the team that I blognosticated would go 7-9 this year. Instead, this enigmatic squad of ne'er-do-wells proved me wrong and made it to BIG GAME­­ #42. It's bizarre, but they got hot at the right time, and Elisha has gone 3 games in a row without a fumble or INT. After witnessing their past playoff debacles, I figured they'd miss that 36 yard game winning FG attempt, but could never have predicted the Corey Webster INT and the 47 yard winner in OT. Unfathomable.

So the Giants are now 4-0 in NFC Championship Games. In BIG GAME history? Uhm, not undefeated. Still, it's been an interesting ride, one that will probably give me a heart attack before it's over. Now they meet the undefeated wicked good Patriots, and Mr. Bookless said it best: "If there is some way the Giants could beat NE in the [biggest football game of the year] I would walk away from watching professional sports. There would simply be no way to ever top that."

I'd have to agree, I'd definitely kiss the NFL goodbye if that happened. But I'd still watch golf and hockey.

So just allow me to repeat the chant screamed by Giants fans who survived the ice bowl at Lambeau last night: LET'S GO GIANTS!

RICK NASH: GOAL OF THE YEAR?

Holy crap. Nash makes the Phoenix D look silly with a stunning assortment of moves.



AND it was the winning goal with 21.5 seconds left (which more than made up for a high sticking penalty two minutes earlier that created a PP goal to give Columbus the lead). Wow.

Rick Nash vs. the Coyotes, 1/17/2008 [YouTube]

(Even Sportscenter had this as their #1 play. ESPN sucks, but they're not STUPID.)

0% GOOD!

We have our first 0% movie of 2008! That's right. Out of 55 reviews, NOBODY has recommended the cinematic turd entitled "One Missed Call".

As you may know, January is the annual dumping ground for bad movies. I should clarify: bad movies come out every week, but these are the ones that Hollywood knows are bad, AND don't think they can make any money on, and that equals fucking horrible. And sweet bastard, the slate of movies coming out this month sure do look atrocious. Someone (not me) should go see all of them and write a book.

Infesting a theater near you in January:

First Sunday. I've never thought Tracy Morgan was funny. Sit through the trailer for this and try to argue otherwise.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. I guess it could be worse, it could be "Transporter 3".

Cloverfield. "Blair Witch" meets "Independence Day"--the hybrid no one asked for! Once again, please stop beating up the Statue of Liberty, you Hollywood assholes.

Mad Money. Chick flick alert! I bet Queen Latifah says something "sassy" in this one, am I right? Diane Keaton really needs to stop making movies, period. I wouldn't watch this even if Jim Cramer was yelling at them the whole time.

Meet the Spartans. Approximately 0% funny!

How She Move. Is there a verb missing here? Maybe a letter dropped off the marquee?

Rambo. It's over, Johnny. No, really, I checked.

Untraceable. Unwatchable!

27 Dresses. EXTREME TO THE MAX CHICK FLICK ALERT!

February ain't much better:

Jumper starring muthafuckin' Samuel L. Jackson. By my calculations, he's made approximately 1 good movie and has just coasted since then.

The Eye: Jessica Alba is blind, so she doesn't know how hot she is!

Postal. Uwe Boll's magnum opus, as if he could even spell that.

Witless Protection. Fuck Larry the Cable Guy and upgrade to FiOS.

Fool's Gold. What is this, "Romancing The Stone"? Who greenlighted another McConaughey/Hudson movie? Are they the new Crosby/Hope?

The Hottie & the Nottie. The three words that strikes fear in the hearts of moviegoers: Starring Paris Hilton.

And now I've lost the will to continue typing.

THE BEST WAY TO CONVINCE ME TO NOT USE YOUR SERVICE

So I'm looking for a non-DRM online music store. I have iTunes, and it's easy to use and all, but it bugs me that I pay 0.99€ (which is like $1.46) for songs that are stuck in iTunes and on my iPod...I just hate Apple on principle. I don't know, I need to do research about DRM music and what I can do to make this music available elsewhere.

I guess the bigger news here is that I'm looking to go legit. Don't get me wrong, I don't really feel bad about using BT or whatnot, it's just that at a certain point it becomes such a pain in the ass to find one obscure song through p2p, when iTunes (or somewhere else) has the ability to provide this for a small fee right away...Plus I'm an avid capitalist and this type of system helps to prove my ideology that the way forward isn't suing and being a general bitch but innovating and creating demand for new and unique services. As much as I dislike Apple and Steve "Hand" Jobs, it's hard to be a hater on what they've managed to do.

Anyway, the whole point of the post was that I'm looking for an alternative to Apple. I found Sony Connect Europe and click on the Google link and got the following message:

For those of you that can't read the text it says: "We have performed a basic system check and detected that your system is not compatible with the CONNECT service. We recommend to download and install the item below and try again."
The download is MS IE...The last way to get me to use your service is to tell me that I have to use the insecure and for-shit Internet Explorer because Firefox is "not compatible." Fuck off Sony. No really, just fuck off.

RUSSIAN SUPERLEAGUE SUPERFIGHT

Putting the "super" in Russian SuperLeague, this is the most ridiculous hockey fight I've ever seen. This took place on January 8, 2008, featuring AK Bars Kazan (in the light jerseys that remind me of the original New Jersey Devils) vs. Traktor Chelyabinsk (dark jerseys):



From YouTube user ranndino who watched the game:

"With the score 7-5 and Traktor Chelyabinsk on a 5-on-3 power play they took out the goalie, so it was 6-on-3. They scored the goal to apparently make it 7-6, but the puck was knocked out of the goalie's glove after he made the save. Ak Bars players did not seem to appreciate it and one of them punched the celebrating player. Then all hell broke loose."

There were 378 PIM assessed during this fracas, and I'm pretty sure every player from both teams were involved. I love the ref at 0:22 trying unsuccessfully to stop the tidal wave of players coming off the bench to join in. At around 1:40 you think it's over, but it's not; one of the Chelyabinsk players throws an AK Bars jersey into the stands, which causes #30 (allegedly, Aleksandr Stepanov) to go apeshit and start the second wave of fighting (replayed here at 3:46).

The Philadelphia Flyers are currently in negotiations with Stepanov, they like the cut of his jib.

G-MEN BEAT COWGIRLS

Hard to believe.

Giants Advance to the N.F.C. Championship

Yes, the NFL still blows and that was a painful game to endure, with horrible officiating and approximately 65 penalties. But Elisha and the Giants held on to beat the Cowgirls, 21-17, and holy crap was that satisfying to watch. They will now meet the Packers at the Frozen Tundra next Sunday. The forecast? "Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 7." That's Fahrenheit, and that's fucking cold. Anyway, I'm rooting for snow, since it was fun watching that Pack/Seahawks game in whiteout conditions.

Meanwhile, Peyton will be going home, as the Chargers beat the Colts for the rights to be bitchslapped by the Patriots in the AFC title game. Basically, all the Giants needed was for me to pick against them; I went an incredible 1-3 on my weekend blognostications, and that means I'm done for the season. I'm just going to (try to) enjoy the game next week. (I still think they're going to lose.)

GO GIANTS!

UPDATE (11:01 PM): I just saw a clip of TO crying during the postgame press conference, right after a shot of a somehow even paler Jerry Jones looking like he was ready to collapse directly into a coffin. God, I could not be happier right now.

WHY THE NFL BLOWS, AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING MORE GOLF

Everyone says this is "the most exciting weekend in the NFL season". However, I beg to differ, and say that maybe 1 of the 4 games this weekend will even be remotely watchable. In other words, lower your expectations.

Here are my blognostications in a nutshell:

* The Packers stink, and somehow will lose to the Seahawks. Yeah, I know, I've been saying that Green Bay is good all year, but they really aren't.

* The Giants will lose in Big D in some bizarre fashion, and we will have to see 45 pictures of Romo and Jessica Simpson in the process. But not to worry: Fucking Coach Coughlin will get a 3 year extension.

* The Colts will beat the Chargers in the most boring game ever, featuring an NFL record number of false start penalties.

* The Pats will romp the Jags, giving birth to even more arrogant Massholes.

There you have it. The NFL. Meh.

But this is the crux of my posting: I saw a "Quest For Lombardi" commercial the other day, referencing the trophy named after the legendary coach that's awarded to the Super Big Game winner. However, they had the nerve to put Terrell Owens in this commercial. He is the polar opposite of everything Lombardi believed in. He could care less about teamwork, respect, dedication to the sport, and winning. TO is all about TO, and he couldn't give two shits about his teammates, his coaches, the fans, the media, or anyone that isn't named "Terrell Owens".

The whole "I might not play because I'm so badly injured" drama preceding the Giants game basically serves two purposes: 1) to give him an excuse if he has a shitty game, and 2) to get the media to lavish attention on him. It's pathetic what this league, and the sports media, has become. To put it bluntly, the league is shitting all over its own tradition by saying "TO" and "Lombardi" in the same breath. The NFL should be ashamed of itself, and its billions of dollars.

This may not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me or reads this blog, but golf is really the only pure sport that's left. Last night I came to the realization that it is the only sport that is universally appreciated. The NFL is only big in the States, soccer is big everywhere but the US, hockey is only really popular in North America, baseball is not followed at all in Europe, F1 racing isn't as big as NASCAR in the States--you get the picture. In addition, there are no contracts, no incentive clauses, trades, free agency, or superagents. When you leave the golf course at the end of a tournament, you are paid exactly what you deserve according to how you performed on the golf course. Period.

So as always, I'm just going to be watching more golf. Less than 90 days until the Masters!

NHL NAMES: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SISSY

Here's what you were waiting for: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SISSY OF NHL NAMES.

Good:
Stu Barnes (C, Dallas Stars)
Radek Bonk (C, Nashville Predators) (Known to scream after every check: "You just got Bonk'd!")
Brent Burns (D, Minnesota Wild) (His middle name is NOT Monty.)
Andrew Ference (D, Boston Bruins) (Nickname "Inter". Get it?)
Trent Hunter (RW, New York Islanders) (I've visited his brother Milf's website.)
Patrick Kane (RW, Chicago Blackhawks)
Chad Kilger (C, Toronto Maple Leafs)
Georges Laraque (RW, Pittsburgh Penguins )(means "The Rock" in French. Or not.)
Colton Orr (RW, New York Rangers)
Chris Pronger (D, Anaheim Ducks)
Miroslav Satan (RW, New York Islanders) (Pronounced "sha-TAN?" Yeah right.)
Ryan Stone (C, Pittsburgh Penguins)
Stephane Yelle (C, Calgary Flames)
Branko Radivojevic (RW, Minnesota Wild) (Czech for "Bronco Nagurski".)

Bad:
Johnny Boychuk (D, Colorado Avalanche) (The less I know about this name, the better.)
Dustin Byfuglien (D, Chicago Blackhawks) ("I've been called ugly, fugly, pugly, pug ugly, pug fugly . . . but not Byfuglien.")
Jonathan Cheechoo (RW, San Jose Sharks) (That's fun to say. Tee hee!)
Jeff Finger (D, Colorado Avalanche) (Hopefully not known to scream after every check: "You just got Finger'd!")
Olli Jokinen (C, Florida Panthers) ("What's so funny about me? Is it my name? Does it sound like a clown to you?")
David Legwand (C, Nashville Predators) (Insert dick joke here.)
Jonathan Quick (G, Los Angeles Kings) (Sent down to minors after a GAA of 3.86 in the NHL. In other words he's Quick, but not quick enough. Sorry. I'll show myself out.)
Jarkko Ruutu (RW, Pittsburgh Penguins) (See "Cheechoo".)
Alexander Semin (LW, Washington Capitals) (Again, I call bullshit on the pronunciation "SEM-in".)
Dan Hinote (C, St. Louis Blues) (I thought I'd end this section on a . . . oh forget it.)


Sissy:
Mathieu Dandenault (D, Montreal Canadiens) (Puts the "dandy" in Dandenault.)
Roman Hamrlik (D, Montreal Canadiens) (Get that outta yer mouth!)
Shane Hnidy (D, Boston Bruins) (Because it sounds like "nightie")
Jordin Tootoo (RW, Nashville Predators)
Marc-Andre Fleury (G, Pittsburgh Penguins)
Guillaume Latendresse, (RW, Montreal Canadiens) (French for "wears women's dresses".)

WRIST SHOTS: HOW MUCH PUCK COULD KOVALCHUK CHUCK?

Poor Ilya. The guy has the most goals in the NHL (currently 36) and he can't even get enough votes to get on the All-Star team. The real kick in the ass is that the game is being played in his hometown of Atlanta, which as everyone knows is the home of fantastic, die-hard hockey fans. Obviously.

Meanwhile, Marty and Henrik (yes, I am on a first name basis with them) will be starting goaltenders for the Eastern Wales Conference All-Stars. I say we make sure DiPietro is the 3rd starter, score a NY Metro Area Goalie Hat Trick (brought to you by HUMMER). VOTE NOW!

UPDATE: DiPietro was selected, but Tomas Vokoun is in there instead of Lundqvist. And voting has ended already. Oops.

OVECHKIN!

Ovechkin, Capitals agree to 13-year, $124 million contract extension

Now the Crapitals star player can finally upgrade his famously Eurotrashy wardrobe. WTF? After the DiPietro 15 year itch I didn't think anyone would write up a contract this absurd. Yikes. This might put the Crapitals out of business for good. Rob says he definitely won't play that long for them; I predict that in 8 years he'll be playing for the Islanders under coach Rick DiPietro.

I'm happy for goalie's Ty Conklin's hot streak -- he's done nothing but win out in Pittsburgh. Why am I happy, you ask? Because not only is he an American goalie (from Alaska) whom I saw play for UNH, and I felt surpremely sorry for him after his goaltending gaffe as an Edmonton backup as the evil Carolina Whalers won the Cup a few years back. http://cbs.sportsline.com/nhl/story/10569350/ So with the benching of the incredibly mediocre Fleury, maybe the Pens are on the road to respectability? All I know is that it will set the stage for CROSBY TO SAVE HOCKEY ONCE AGAIN. Now I'm genuinely afraid of them come playoff time.

In his neverending quest for pure assholishness, Derian Hatcher of the Fucking Flyers decided to (leave his feet to) deliver a check to the Maple Leaves' Alexander Steen, but instead crushed his own teammate.



That's right: Joffrey Lupul ended up on the IR with a mild concussion and two bruised cervical vertebrae due to Hatcher's douchebaggery. Way to go, shitbrain! At last, a Flyers cheap shot came back to hurt them in a real, tangable way. Oh, and Hatcher also tried to bite Devils' Travis Zajac, but it was deemed "inconclusive". Total amount of suspension = 0 games. I am seriously sick of this shit.

I'll leave you with two words: PUCK BUNNIES. That's all I'm going to say, you can read about the rest on this message board.

F*CK OPEN OFFICE

Goddamn it...dammit, dammit damn motherfucking fuckers.

They've been bugging me for a the last week to update to the "NEW" Version 2.3.1. I thought that maybe some of my instability issues experienced earlier this week would be resolved with an update. That remains to be seen, but for an update that "is a minor bug fix release with no new features for users" it was a 80mb download.

And the icing on the cake (which I ran into the last update, but subsequently forgot about), they delete all your dictionaries when you update. And installing dictionaries is somewhere between nuclear physics and time travel on the standardized scale of difficulty.

FUCK OPEN OFFICE. It's almost (only almost) enough to make one think of how good Microsoft can be.

THE COEN BROTHERS AREN'T THAT GOOD, ARE THEY?

I watched No Country for Old Men last night. I'll try to avoid spoiling the movie for those of you who haven't seen it yet, and plan to, but you may want to avoid the whole post if you don't want to know anything about it.

First the good:
*Javier Bardem gave the best performance I've seen in a long long time. I haven't seen anything else that he was in (to my knowledge), but he was so good in this movie. He should win the Oscar for best supporting actor (even though it was basically a lead actor part, but whatever)
*Visually this movie is stunning. The shots of Texas desert are just beautiful.
*I like movies that are deep, dark and cold without the happy "the bad guys are dead, the good guys ride into the sunset with the pretty girl" endings. More than one reviewer called this movie nihilistic.

And the not so good:
I'm going to call this the "Knocked Up syndrome" from here on in - the movie doesn't live up to its own hype. If it's got a Rotten Tomatoes rating of over 90% (and it's not some French art house clusterfuck), I expect the movie to knock me off my feet. Silly me.

(This is probably where you should stop reading if you don't want to know too much about the movie)
The problem with this movie is that it is too movie-ish for me. Let's see if I can describe what I mean; I guess I got the feeling too much that the Coens were just writing a movie to get reviews of being "black" and "nihilistic" and "gritty." It's just a movie pretending to be these things and at no point during this thing did I manage to get myself "into" the movie. With all the plot-twists and main characters dying, I just came to expect it by the end, because that was the type of movie that this was. I understand that the Coens stuck close to the book, which I have not read, but this is my big criticism-It's a hackneyed version of a true film noir. Or maybe I'm just so cynical, that I watch movies like this with saying "it didn't make me feel anything." Realism doesn't exist in movies for me because they are the epitome of fake (except for Al Gore or Michael Moore productions - that is real, people).

One of the main characters died at a certain point and I think this was the turning point of the movie. It was overly downplayed to the point where you ask if said character really had any bearing on the movie at all (which he did - for 3/4 of the movie). It was at that point that I truly felt the manipulative powers of the Coen Bros coming through.

The ending wasn't anything spectacular. I won't go into details, but I had read more than one critique about the "excellent, plot twisting ending." Did these people see the same movie as me? It offered no surprises to me.

And one more thing...Does anyone know if they purposefully use fake-looking dogs for scenes where the animals are dead and/or dying? Do they do this so as not to offend the audience? We can make life-like blood, and show someone stitching himself up from a gunshot wound, but heaven-forbid we make it look like a real dog died...

Ugh. Anyway, it was a fine movie, but not as good as I thought it would be.

JIMMY MCNULTY'S BACK AND OTHER STUFF

(No spoilers).

I've got a ton of shite that I've wanted to blog about for the last week and a half or so, but with the whole getting back to France, struggling with jetlag and getting back into the work thing, I've not really had time.

Anyway, I watched S5E1 of the Wire last night and I'm just happy to see that McNulty's back to his drunk and stumbling, womanizing ways...he's far more enjoyable like this than the stand-up guy that he was last season. I won't go into any depth because I know that Kammann's not watched it yet, but I will say this: FUCK SLATE FOR RUINING EVERYTHING GOOD THAT EVER HAPPENS ON TV. They did this same thing for the final season of the Sopranos; they are these talking heads who think that critiquing pop culture makes them even more smarter. I don't fucking care if you think that the Wire is more Shakespearian or Dickensian. I'm done with Slate; I swear I'm going to remove it from my RSS reader...tomorrow.

SCREW THE SABRES. I had the opportunity to watch 4 games in the last three weeks. They won one, lost two in the shootout and lost one by 3 goals. I honestly can't complain about the loss in Jersey, cause we were there and I said that if it went to a shootout I wouldn't bitch; I lied, but I was happy to see a shootout. On New Year's Day the game was so fucking awesome that it's not really that big of a deal that they lost. I'd have liked to see them win, but watching Sid-the-Kid save hockey and then scream like a school girl was pretty funny. You know he loves hockey, and that's great to see. Lindy was smiling while he was losing...That you never see.
I caught the 3rd period of the Sabres shit performance in Atlanta on Sunday...Come on 5 to 2. What the fuck.

Jeff talked about this beer, but Blue Point Oatmeal Stout Cask was my personal beer of the year. It was the first cask beer that I'd had and it was just brilliant. Three Philosophers was probably second. Let's hear it for NYS beermakers. I had these on two consecutive days between Christmas and New Years. Plus we ate at Hudson House...Those few days made up for the rest of the crappy year.

T.I.H.™ OPEN FUCKING OFFICE 2.3. Sun Microsystems can suck my balls for providing a free program that is such a pain in my ass. Ok I don't hate it enough to pony up $400 for Microsoft Office, but I've been fighting with Oo2.3 since yesterday morning and it's starting to grind on me. Part of it may be my fault, because of my inexperience with FauXcel, I keep making mistakes that have little-to-nothing to do with Oo2.3, but still, the eggheads who program should have thought that someone, like me, may try to paste entire sheets into one cell and planned for this. But they didn't, so it crashes and I have restart at my last save point (I just did it for the third time in the last 30 minutes: I suck).

CAN SOMEONE WAKE ME UP WHEN IT'S TIME TO VOTE FOR RALPH WIGGUM? I'm so fucking sick of the primaries and they just started. Ok, we understand, it's going to be either Hillary or Obama...or someone else and McCain or Huckabee...or someone else. One state does not make a trend, and it's irrelevant anyway. Do people actually think that anyone is going to make a difference? It's all about cash.

Who determines the size tires on your car? I just bought tires for mine. I've got 175/65/R13 80T's. If they were 175/70's I would pay about 15 euros less per tire, but because there's a 5% difference in the tire's profile, I have to pay more. I'm convinced that VW does everything in its power to make your life a living hell if you don't buy your parts from them. It took me an hour to change the back wiper on that fucking car because VW has some propriety rear wiper system...Turns out that propriety means nothing to a man with a hammer, pliers, a razor blade and some bolts. Fuck VAG.
I think I'm going to put dubs on my VW Polo...20 inchers bitch. My 55hp (I'm not kidding) should handle that perfectly well!

Check that...FUCK Oo2.3 IN THE PANTS. It just crashed for no fucking reason whatsoever. FUCK FUCK FUCK!
They have this asshole "recovery" thing that just "recovers" your document to the last time you saved it. Goddamn fucking cocks...they must work with Gary ("I SUCK") Bettman. I know that it's "free", but damn it, it's as fucking unstable Lindsay Lohan on ice skates.

This cunt program has crashed 4 times on me this morning...I have honestly lost at least 2 hours of work. Dickheads. Fuck them.

Download it now, kiddies. Openoffice.org.

WEEKLY TOP 10: WHAT I LEARNED DURING WINTER VACATION

10. Capital One Bowl Week can turn out to be a dud. Compared to last year, there was not one compelling bowl game all week. I'm glad I paid attention to the regular season, because that's when all the great games happened.

9. A hot toddy made with Woodford Reserve bourbon, lemon, honey and cloves KICKS ASS. That's how I rang in 2008.

8. Rob says this might be the funniest line of the year, and I might have to agree with him (from The Onion's hilarious Our Dumb World Atlas):

MALAWI: Come For The Food Shortages, Stay Because You've Died.

7. While it's a very funny show, "The Larry Sanders Show" is no "Honeymooners". I watched episodes of both shows on New Years Day, and let's just say that Garry Shandling's Other Show, while funny, hasn't aged all that well. Plus, the washed-out DVD transfer (from 2002) makes it look even older than it actually is.

6. For some reason, I can't learn the lyrics to most late 60s/early 70s classic rock songs that grew up listening to as a kid. If I didn't know the words then, I don't know them now. Even if I look them up online, they just don't stick. I guess if you've heard "Brown Sugar" 500 times without knowing what the hell Mick Jagger is saying, you can't expect to figure it out after reading the lyric sheet once.

5. I'm surprisingly good at "Dance Dance Revolution". No, really. Especially when songs like a-ha's "Take On Me" and Chic's "Le Freak" come on, I'm unstoppable.

4. Screw the New Jersey Devils for putting such a beautiful hockey arena in Newark. Additionally, screw the PATH train for being so useless: it took two trains and 45 minutes to get from New York to Newark. After unleashing a litany of expletives during this frustrating detour (which I could blame on my drunkness, or the fact that I had just contracted an upper respiratory infection), I later realized that I would make a lousy competitor on "The Amazing Race".

3. The typical NFL game blows, especially when compared to any Madden NFL '08 game. Seriously, the PS2 version is fantastic, and can only imagine what the "next gen" ones are like. In fact, it's so realistic, Giants QB Elisha threw 3 INTs before finally settling down and throwing two TDs before getting injured, in a poorly played 14-6 win over the Redskins. Eerie.

2. I respect the guy for keeping at it, but Dick Clark needs to retire. It's just sad to hear him struggle through a simple sentence, and this time around he actually said "HAPPY DEW YEAR". I also officially think the "rockin' eve" concept is officially dead when all you have is Fergie, Carrie Underwood, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, whoever the hell they are.



1. Not a new revelation, but Ginger Man is the best beer bar in NYC. I already suspected this, but I had to visit a second time to make sure. Blue Point Oatmeal Stout from the cask was fantastic.

WINTER CLASSIC: FINAL THOUGHTS

Seriously, these are my final thoughts, for now.

After "O Canada", Irish tenor Ronan Tynan sang "God Bless America" and thanked "our troops fighting in Afghanistan". Uhm, the troops from which country? Canada? Ireland? I'm pretty sure there are also still US troops in Iraq, so I guess we're not talking about them. Strange. Then the game started without the playing of the National Anthem. I guess was right about the fact that Buffalo has been annexed by Canada. (Funny how I thought "Chicago" when they said the "Blackhawks" are flying over.)

I was really impressed by the 71,217 hockey fans in Western NY/PA that showed up for this game. This will help prove that the NHL is a viable sport, or at least still alive and well, at least in strong hockey cities like Buffalo. I even believe that ESPN was a little jealous, as they didn't show any highlights for the first 21 minutes of Sportscenter despite a lack of any compelling sports news or bowl games. (Oh never mind, that's what they always do.)

Since NBC didn't have a bowl game it was their choice (not the NHL's) to hold this event on New Year's Day during a time when 4 bowl games were taking place. However, the ratings were much better than expected: a 2.6/5 (to compare, Game 5 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals drew a 2.1), the highest regular season hockey ratings since FOX's Glowpuck days in 1996. Those aren't killer numbers, considering it's a day when pretty much everyone is off from work (except those forced to clean up all the buffalo wing chicken bones at the Ralph), but it's a stride in the right direction.

The frequent ice maintenance stoppages were a bit of a buzzkill. Apparently, the best technology we have to combat this is . . . one guy with a water bottle and a CO2 canister. I did predict there would be emergency Zamboni runs, but I didn't think that one of them would break because of the amount of snow it had to pick up. During these many breaks the NBC announcing team chose to chat about: how amazing Sidney Crosby is, the various methods used to repair the ice, the weather radar, Darren Pang's choice of headgear, and how fantastic Sidney Crosby is. This was a missed opportunity by NBC, who could have instead showed any of the following:

* Highlights from the 2007 season
* More awkward on-ice interviews with the players
* More clips from "Slap Shot"
* Those 2 minute webisodes of "The Office" that are impossible to watch online
* More shots of the kids playing pond hockey
* The Buffalo Jills cheerleaders!
* Beef on weck eating contests
* Hal Gurnee's Network Time Killers
* Reruns of classic "CHiPs" episodes
* "Costas Score-O", in which spectators throw Bob Costas into the hockey net

The most glaring omission: they didn't interview ONE SPECTATOR during the game. Of all the talk of how "electric" the atmosphere was, why not get a live account of it? They had over seventy-one thousand people to choose from! Just more evidence that NBC couldn't give a flying crap about hockey fans, or sports fans in general. I was also seriously hoping NBC's follow-up "Magic Of Seal On Ice" was going to be held outdoors after the hockey game, but it was not to be.

Thanks to the magic of HDTV, I was able to determine that Bob Costas uses the Just For Men hair color "Medium Dark Brown". He looked shiny and red like a chipmunk, and his boss, Dick Ebersol, especially liked the way he left a touch of gray on the sides. I somehow knew he'd comment about his hockey announcing experience with the 1973 Syracuse Blazers at age 21 (Kris was close when he guessed 17), but I didn't think they'd parlay that into an entire "Slap Shot" Oglithorpe/Goldthorpe fluff piece.

Where is hell is Bill Clement "Clement Hands of Cement"? They had him on NHL.tv doing a pregame with Sam Rosen, but that was it. He should have been working the intermissions instead of Mike Milbury, who is a blithering idiot.

While a New York version of this (The Frozen Apple Classic, name to be trademarked by me) would be pretty cool, especially at Yankee Stadium in early 2009 before it's demolished, the weather in the city might be a problem--it was warm enough to play golf the first weekend of January 2007 (though I don't remember any such weather in February). Therefore, the odds would be better for an outdoor game in Canada (even Quebec City!), Chicago, Colorado, Michigan or Massachusetts. Imagine over 107,000 in Michigan Stadium watching the Red Wings play the Blackhawks (which means there will be about 90,000 shitty seats)? How about an All-Star Game, Europe vs. North America, in Siberia? (Okay, maybe I went a step too far there.)

While this was a fun event to watch, and the snow fell almost on cue giving the whole thing an almost magical look, I don't think they should (or can) do this every year. Maybe it could pop up once every 2 years or so to make it more "special"; otherwise the novelty will wear off pretty quickly like it did with interleague baseball.

Despite all these mostly positive notes regarding the game, Bettman sucks.

Check out this Very Funny Live Blog [Melt Your Face Off].

CALVIN ON: NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

I don't make resolutions. Resolutions are for people who:
1) enjoy being quitters
2) have nothing else to do in January anyway
3) like to impress other people (while they're oblivious of the fact that they're not)
4) like to piss me off by taking up space in the gym

As it often does, Calvin & Hobbes (the final black & white strip, from Saturday, December 30, 1995) sums it up nicely:

WINTER CLASSIC: WHITEOUT SHOOTOUT

CROSBY HAS JUST SAVED HOCKEY AGAIN!

He just scored the winning goal in a shootout in a whiteout in Buffalo. Had the writers not already been on strike, I would have said that NBC scripted that ending.

(video courtesy of NBC via Cablevision via my HDTV via my camera)



I'm sure Kris thinks I'm just rubbing it in by showing his Sabres lose in a shootout, but that was exciting. Meanwhile, NBC showed that clip of Crosby bouncing the puck on his stick about 1000 times--okay, we get it, HE'S GOOD. And I love Doc Emrick but I turned my receiver's center channel down to -12 dB and smothered it with a pillow for the Whiteout Shootout. Much better.

Despite the lack of scoring and frequent ice maintenance stoppages, it couldn't have worked out better for the NHL. Except for the ratings.

That was fun. Let's do it again soon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - LET'S PLAY SOME OUTDOOR HOCKEY!

Let's face it: no one is going to be nostalgic for 2007. Absolutely nothing happened. Nothing. It was a shitastic year, and all I can say to it is good riddance. (And boy is it sad to hear Dick Clark on that New Year show, he really needs to retire.)

But things are already looking up for 2008, as we're kicking it off some OLD TIME OUTDOOR HOCKEY! The Penguins will play the Sabres today in the EXTREME AMPED TO THE MAX NHL Winter Classic in front of 73,000 crazy Western PA/NY hockey fans at Ralph Wilson Stadium, the first regular season pro hockey game to be played outside in the US. (That Heritage Classic game back in 2003 in Edmonton was the first outdoor game, but it doesn't count since it was in Canada, and we couldn't find a single bar that was showing it live.) Although I would have preferred if they had shoveled off a spot on Lake Erie and played pond hockey like real men, I guess they had to accommodate the sissy Europeans on the two squads.

I will probably be the only one watching it since it's up against FOUR BOWL GAMES (another brilliant decision by Gary Bettman, who already sucks in 2008), but I don't really care; if hockey is on in HD, I will watch it. At least the NHL decided to hold All-Star Weekend (sadly, in Atlanta, where they don't have water, much less frozen outdoor ponds) during the dead week before the NFL's "Big Game", making it possible that some desperate sports fans might accidentally tune in. NBC has the game here in the States, and they got Bob Costas to host. This is a coup, since according to his bio, he "has a history broadcasting hockey, serving as the play-by-play commentator for the Syracuse Blazers of the old Eastern Hockey League in 1973-74". That's like saying I should be the new drummer for Led Zeppelin because I rocked a toy drum set in the 3rd grade.

According to the Weather Channel, it will be 30-35 degrees with an 80-90% chance of snow. They already decided to split up the 3rd period into two 10 minute chunks because of the wind, but there are many other questions still unanswered. Will they take emergency Zamboni breaks if it snows? Will a record number of Buffalo wings be consumed? Will Buffalo finally be annexed by Canada? Will Sidney Crosby once again save hockey?

Regardless, I'm looking forward to it. And hey, if this is successful maybe they can do this in Phoenix or Tampa next year. (Okay, maybe not, but a Devils/Rangers game at Yankee Stadium in February would be fantastic.)

Follow along at these various sites:
Official Winter Classic Site [NHL.com]
AOL Fanhouse Winter Classic Live Blog [AOL Sports]
Ice Bowl Open Thread: Pens at The Ralph [Bflo Blog]
Liveblog [Ultimate Sports Road Trip]
Live Blog [Barry Melrose Rocks]

UPDATE (1:15 PM). Seriously, this game looks like it's going to be fantastic. It's snowing pretty steadily, Crosby looks adorable in those vintage powder blue PITT unis, Ryan "Red Light" Miller is wearing a wool cap (what the Canucks call a "tuque") on top of his goalie mask, they have a little "pond hockey" rink off to the side, they have a shot from the BLIMP, and it's in glorious HD. You are a serious asshat if you're watching two mediocre NCAA teams (like Florida/Michigan in the Capital One Bowl) play right now.

SID THE KID > TEBOW

MERRY CHRISTMAS

This video cracked me up: Charlie Brown Christmas dubbed over by the cast of "Scrubs".

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!



"My Charlie Brown Christmas" by The Cast of Scrubs [YouTube]

MISHEARD LYRICS: PEARL JAM "YELLOW LEDBETTER"

It was a pretty desolate Saturday night in Nyack last week, because of a predicted snowstorm that didn't actually turn out to be any big deal. In a nearly empty Bourbon Street, we finally got Ray to play Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" after bugging him for, I don't know, over three years. I understand his reluctance, since there's no way to figure out what the lyrics are; we ended up "singing" it for him from a sad combination of an awful internet "translation" and our equally awful "memory".

Here's "Misheard Lyrics Guy" and his best guess as to what the hell Eddie Vedder is warbling:



Make me fries!

Misheard Lyrics to Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" [YouTube]

IN MY DREAMS YOU'RE BLOWING ME . . .

. . . some kisses."



That might be the line of the year. That's one of the double entendres from the song "Let's Duet", featured in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, starring John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer.

Although this looks like a one-joke movie, it's a funny joke. This rips apart the Hollywood conventions shoved down our throats by biopics such as Ray and Walk The Line, and it's about damn time. I cannot tell you how many times I screamed at the screen, "That never happened!" during those two fake, melodramatic movies.

Here's a clip from the movie, where Dewey meets the Beatles.



"Let's Duet" from Walk Hard [YouTube]
Dewey Meets The Beatles (Walk Hard) [YouTube]

WEEKLY TOP 10: BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

This is the last Top 10 of 2007. Enjoy!

10. It's not supposed to get above 30° today, which in meteorological terms is "fucking freezing". I have to say that the snow looks amazing; because there was a little ice/rain at the end of the snowstorm on Sunday, there is a glistening, frozen shell over everything. My first thought was: how far could I putt a golf ball across that?

9. You know the little bag that a Lipton teabag comes in? What's that called? A teabag bag? I wonder if that's on the Lipton.com FAQ.

8. I went to the bar three days last week, at least one of those trips was in order to get a discount to join the gym from one of the bartenders (name withheld). After all that drinking, I never got the form from her (okay, her name is Stalky McStalkerson). I guess that means I have to drink EVEN MORE so eventually I can join up. Ironic, isn't it?

7. After two seasons, Ricky Gervais' "Extras" wrapped up with a "series finale special" the way a quality show is supposed to. Not only did it make a statement about the vacuous, empty lives of celebrities, it also left its two main characters on an 'up' note (unlike the depressing BBC version of "The Office"). In other words, something ACTUALLY HAPPENED on the show's series finale, unlike "The Sopranos". Plus, George Michael and Clive Owen did hilarious, self-deprecating cameos, and where else are you going to find that?

6. Barry Zuckerkorn > Arthur Fonzerelli.





5. The Giants suck. They lost to the pathetic Redskins last night, powered by Elisha Manning's 18/52 for 184 performance, his 34 incompletions being the worst shitshow since Joe "I Wanna Kiss You" Namath did it in 1967. Why do I bother? What a shitastic team this 2007 squad is. I've said I'm not talking about Coughlin anymore until he's fired, but of course he won't since they'll back into the playoffs because the NFC is god awful.

4. I am tired of Xmas shopping. I had to buy something at TJ Maxx last week, and they invariably have the world's slowest lines--it made me want to stab someone in the neck. And for some reason, every time I have to return something at Target there's always some elderly person in front of me that wants to return something without a receipt that they bought from a Montgomery Ward catalogue from 1959 and still expect to get cash back for. Oh, and from now on, NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO WRITE CHECKS. Get a free debit card, it will save everyone time, for Christ's sake. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

3. HBO's "The Wire" is a better crime drama than "The Sopranos". Period. The acting is better, the story lines more interesting, and overall it's a hell of a lot more realistic. And technically speaking, "The Sopranos" never spent that much time on the actual crime, it was always A.J. crying or some nonsense about Meadow's boyfriend--gah! Anyway, I'm halfway through Season 2, and trying to catch up in time for Season 5 which starts in less than a month (Jan 6, 2008). Wish me luck.

2. Note to people who don't clean off their car roof before driving on the highway: screw you. If I see you walking behind me at the store, I'm going to randomly throw ice cubes over my shoulder at your head. Maybe you can swerve out of the way of them, maybe you can't. Either way, I would suggest wearing a helmet.

1. Zooey Deschanel rocks. Here's a clip of her from the movie "Elf" singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" (with Will Ferrell). I wouldn't mind the cold outside if Zooey was in my shower.

WAYS TO MAKE SUNDAY'S JETS/PATRIOTS GAME MORE COMPETITIVE

In the epic battle between the 3-10 Jets vs. the 13-0 Patriots, a game for the ages in which the Patriots were initially favored by 27 points--ahhh, who are we kidding? This is going to be a complete shitshow. I'll tune in, but I'm really just praying for a snowstorm, a season-ending injury and a possible fist fight between coaches.

How could the NFL make this game more competitive? We asked the experts (ourselves) and here's some of their proposals:

• When Patriots have the ball, they have a “shot clock”: they have to score or turn the ball over in 24 seconds. (Rob)
• Patriots have to play with sausage in their pockets while wild dogs run free on the field. (Rob)
• 3 times per half, Jets are allowed to call time and stop the action at any point during the play. (Rob)
• When the Jets are on offense, a Wilson Pee Wee size football is used. When Patriots are on offense, a cannonball is used. (Rob)
• Tom Brady will be "steady QB" (he has to play for both sides). (Karl)
• Patriots offense must wear blindfolds. (Jeff K)
• Jets offense: first down = 5 pts. (Jeff K)
• Patriots defense must shout out 7 "Mississippis" before rushing the QB. (Jeff K)
• Jets defense can use two-hand touch. (Jeff K)
• Jets and Pats cheerleaders both allowed on the field of play. (Karl)
• Randy Moss must get shock collar, [Jets' coach] Mangini gets to hold the remote trigger. (Karl)
• For a touch of realism, the Patriots can only wear clothing made before 1776, including those stupid tri-corner hats instead of helmets, while the Jets are allowed to advance the ball by using actual jets. (Jeff K)
• Jets get extra points for "clown catches". For example, diving catch = 3 points. A diving catch in end zone = 7 x 3 = 21 points. (Kris)
• Game must be played mano a mano in Madden 08. (Karl)
  

• Jets must use one of those super-distance Nerf balls, along with Velcro stick-em gloves. (Jeff K)
• Pats must use the skin of a freshly killed pig. (Jeff K)
• Jets: extra points if Suzy Kolber kisses Joe Namath. ("I could care less about the team struggggling.") Pats: negative points if Amanda Kremer kisses Tom Brady. (Jeff K)

GABORIK VS. HASEK (12/7/2007)

For all of you that complain that there's not enough hockey here at Open Hockey, here's a Martin Gaborik breakaway that is canceled by Hasek in an original way.



That was completely unnecessary, especially considering Hasek had a 5-0 lead with 2:22 left.

NSFW: DREW CURTIS IS A BIG FAT ASSHOLE

I go to Fark from time to time...usually those times when I'm looking to kill 15 minutes or 3 hours, I happen onto their site to check out some of the crazy happenings of the world. It's like Yahoo! Odd News, but on a much grander scale...I never thought of Fark as any type of revolutionary thing...Although the idiots that spend their days on there are fucking scary...They have Photoshop contests that are posted at 12:51pm and there are 5 photoshopped pics up there by 12:55pm...That's dedication or something.

Anyway, I read yesterday that Drew Curtis, Fark's creator, was trying to copyright/trademark "NSFW". Obviously, like everyone else in the free world I said (and here I'm avoiding the obvious 'WTF'), "what a fucking idiot."

Today there's an interview with Drew (audio) and he explains himself. He wants to "make a statement about the state of copyright affairs." He does a good job at convincing the local DJ's (who wouldn't, they're local fucking DJs) that he's not looking to make money off of this. But who's he kidding. If he could go after (or send his little asshole minions from Fark.com after) every established site that uses NSFW...Holy shit, he'd make a mint for the three hours it took for the internets to make a new acronym.

I'm just going to get out ahead here and start the copyrighting procedure for DIBD (Drew is a big Dick) and DIBA (asshole) which will eventually replace NSFW in the lexicon. Patent pending, patent pending.

WAX NOSTALGIA: NEW YEARS 1996/1997

For some reason, I was thinking about some of the New Years Eves that I've had. I think it's because I supposed to rent a tux for this year's...I don't think that that is going to happen...What the fuck! I have a nice wool suit and nice leather shoes...Why do I want to some polyester shit and plastic shoes that 400 other fucks have puked in? Fuck that...I still think the hosts should be happy that I don't show up in jeans and "Kiss me I'm Irish" t-shirt. Anyway, enough tangents.

December 31, 1996. My first news years home since I'd graduated from high school. I brought my then-current girlfriend to the backwoods of central New York. Some high school buddies of mine were getting together at one guys house, so we go along...For some reason the TV wasn't working so we watched countdown in black&white snow. The new year goes off without a hitch and then around 2am, for some reason my old classmate put his fist through the wall in his brother's room. We all laughed, as drunks are wont to do at 2am-well everyone laughed but the brother. He went and got a shotgun. Then he got shotgun shells. Then he loaded said shotgun with said shells. Then he crunched the pump and put the muzzle on his brother's chest and started screaming something.

What happened next is a bit hazy in my mind...I remember my girlfriend screaming at me to do something (that wasn't going to happen - I don't want to see anyone shot, but I'll be goddamned that I'm going to step between two angry brothers and a gun), I remember the third brother laughing and saying that the one holding the gun didn't have the balls to pull the trigger (I'm really not kidding here). After that I don't remember what happened. The trigger was not pulled, of that I'm sure. I got the feeling that this wasn't the first time that this type of thing had taken place.
Brother #2 (target) is now a cop in CT. Brother #3 (taunter) is a small business owner in upstate NY. Brother #1 (potential shooter) - I do not know what happened to him. Last time I heard he was still alive and non-incarcerated.

While upstate NY may not be West Virginia, there are certain aspects that are Deliverance-esque. It's not all cider mills and foilage.

BANNED IN OTTAWA

I've covered this in the past, but it's always a good conversation starter at corporate holiday parties and cocktail parties with vague acquaintances: TSG reports on the Canadian government's Q3 efforts to keep Canadians moral.

Interesting highlights:

*Napoleon Dynamite: [for better or worse] Admitted
*Tom "Ropes" McGurk has to win some sort of tenacity prize...he must have 50 videos banned, but he keeps sending them to Customs for review. (edit: I was going to try to link his website or something...I googled his name and google spits out Tom 'Ropes' McGurk - All Male Bondage Website. I didn't click through...You all are welcome to go right ahead.)
*Chloroform Rape: Prohibited (yeah for some reason I think it would be it hard to convince anyone that this isn't obscene)
*Fist Uro Collector Edition 1 & 2, Fist Uro 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17: Prohibited
*Fist Uro 8: Admitted (The system works)
*Horny Black Mothers & Daughters: Admitted
*Mother and Daughter Incest 1, Mother Daughter Incest 6, Real Mother Daughter Incest 6: Prohibited (could the 51st state be making a racial statement?)
*Stop or I'll Squirt: Admitted (great title)
(Regardless of our feelings on free-market or libertarianism or government control, I think we can all say that the Canadian Government made the correct decision on this next one.)
*Diarrhea Bukkake: Prohibited

As far as I can tell, Ron Jeremy is not in fact banned in Canada, but I needed a picture to use and even the non-porn watching public would tend to recognize him.

T.I.H.™: POLITICIANS (ESP. THOSE WHO WON'T ANSWER A DAMN QUESTION)

Sometime back in the 17th century, political debates were a vital forum for candidates to state where they stand on certain issues, and propose their solutions for the nation's problems (I assume). However, in the current 24/7 news media climate we live in, the whole purpose of these debates seems to be to not say anything of substance, or even answer a question in a straightforward way. These politicians all act like lawyers, making sure they say nothing incriminating, questionable, or concrete that you can call them out on at a later date. The best sound bite that one can hope for is a cheeky comment like the one from Mike "I Heart" Huckabee who, when asked the asinine question, "What would Jesus do about the death penalty?", his cheeky reply was, "Jesus was too smart to run for public office." Oh boy, we've reduced political discourse to a punchline. That's fantastic.

In my attempt to be a good, informed citizen, I attempted to watch one of these "debates", but the candidates' complete inability and unwillingness to ACTUALLY ANSWER A QUESTION was completely infuriating. Here's a sample from the 5 minutes that I recently endured of last week's CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate (the very name makes me want to puke blood). This is taken from the transcript and features the sassy Anderson Cooper trying (and failing) to get a straight answer out of Governor Mitt Romney. (Personally, I would never vote for someone named after a baseball glove, but maybe that's just me.)

Cooper: Governor Romney, you said in 1994 that you looked forward to the day when gays and lesbians could serve, and I quote, "openly and honestly in our nation's military." Do you stand by that?
Romney: This isn't that time. This is not that time. We're in the middle of a war. The people who have...
Cooper: Do you look forward to that time, though, one day?
Romney: I'm going to listen to the people who run the military to see what the circumstances are like. And my view is that, at this stage, this is not the time for us to make that kind of...
Cooper: Is that a change in your position...
Romney: Yes, I didn't think it would work. I didn't think "don't ask/don't tell" would work. That was my -- I didn't think that would work. I thought that was a policy, when I heard about it, I laughed. I said that doesn't make any sense to me.
And you know what? It's been there now for, what, 15 years? It seems to have worked.
Cooper: So, just so I'm clear, at this point, do you still look forward to a day when gays can serve openly in the military or no longer?
Romney: I look forward to hearing from the military exactly what they believe is the right way to have the right kind of cohesion and support in our troops and I listen to what they have to say.

Etc., etc., ad fucking nauseum. He was rightfully booed at this point, which is the exact point I turned it off. Sweet fancy Moses, this stuff is mind-numbing. How the hell are you supposed to decide on who to vote for when no one will answer a question?

Whenever I think I've reached my breaking point with 2008 election coverage I realize, oh my lord, there's ANOTHER YEAR OF THIS CRAP. I have to say that I love all the candidates equally, which is to say I loathe all of them. So I've decided that I'm voting for Hilary Duff for President, which was also my write-in vote for the NY Senate. (Did you know I can't find one single person that I know in New York that voted for the other Hillary? Funny, that.)

As always, the Onion News Network seems to say it best.



Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters [Onion News Network]

"No one party has the monopoly on bullshit . . . "
"I've always been a big fan of Hillary. She's so full of bullshit."

I like how ONN calls their election coverage "War For The White House".

CNN/YouTube Debate transcript [Part 1] [Part 2]

T.I.H.™ MYSPACEBOOK

This of course goes without saying: Myspace is the perfect example of why human beings will be extinct in less than 50 years.
Now, I wasn't trying to create an account for "me". My company needs all the linking help that it can get and apparently according to the good great amazing wonderful awesome people at Google, the more links from high PageRanked sites (normally the ones that have lots and lots of retards on them; i.e. Myspace), the better PageRanked you become. Since it shouldn't have been too much trouble to create a corporate account and link to my corporate website (excuse me for one second) [mobilier diner, produits coca cola, produits deco années 50] (right, where was I). Oh yeah, so I went to create a Myspace account. First, they didn't like my password, so I changed it, then they didn't like my [of lack a] gender, finally I got to that anti-spammer fucked-up letter screen. It took about 10 screens before I could decipher it correctly - then they told me that my password was too close to my "First Name". Long story short...Myspace finally and completely proved that I don't belong on there, in personal or corporate guise. Fuck them and their 40-year old teenage girls.

I have been thinking about posting about Facebook for a few weeks now, because I actually do have an account over there...but it just such a waste of time (both Facebook and writing about it). I will say this though: For all you stupid nancy-boy pricks who are bitching because Facebook is using your information to make money [go figure], if you don't like it you have this funny little function in Facebook:

Confirm Facebook Account Deactivation

Why don't you use it and just shut the fuck up.

All these fucking pricks want something for nothing and they want their birthday kept private from the masses are marketers out there. Man I hate people (I'm sure this comes a shock to many of you).

T.I.D.H.™ (THINGS I DON'T HATE): AMY MACDONALD

I'm not a real connoisseur of music...I like some stuff, I don't like some stuff, but I just don't have the energy or the drive to really seek out music. I try not to listen to pop radio too much, instead listen to the local college station or the off-beat, independent station whenever possible. And sometimes something pretty good just kinda runs into me. Recently, that was Amy Macdonald. I like the the folky, acoustic guitar mixed with 'er thicker-than-a-Scottish-fog accent.

Sorry for the mediocre quality of this video live @ HMV (Her Majesty's Virgin [MegaStore]?) Braehead. Her website has the video for This is the Life, but the 12-year olds on Youtube haven't managed to post it yet.



Here's one of the first singles, Mr. Rock and Roll, from her debut album, "This is the Life."

FLYERS ON A WARNING. NEXT STEP SITTING IN THE CORNER FOR A TIMEOUT

It took five different illegal head-hunting shots before the assholes in Toronto even thought about speaking with the management of Philly?

Seriously, and the league didn't lay down any actual, you know, concrete punishment if any of Philly's goons (or even normal players, because this is well beyond normal goon behavior) hurt anyone else.

What is it, Colin, the "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it" philosophy? Well, since you guys are taking such a stand, I'm going to assume that you won't have to wait long before you need to make a decision regarding Holmgren & co's punishment.

This "warning" really shows the fucking league management's true colors...we don't care fuck-all for the safety and welfare of our players, but we'll make tiny changes if it will get the critics to shut up.

Fuck you Bettman. You suck! Oh and Colin Campbell, you pussy, you're no better than Gary-the-dick.

[Sportsline]

WEEKLY TOP 10: YOUR SKEETIN' HEART

10. This has been one cah-ray-zee NCAA football season, am I right? (Hence the need to give the word "crazy" an extra syllable.) On Saturday, #1 Missouri lost to Oklahoma (which everyone saw coming) and West Virgina, being #2, was required by law to lose to Pitt. And with Ohio State and LSU chosen to meet in the Big Game sometime in mid-January, people are whining about the BCS bowl system! Shocking! Just put the frigging bowl games on and I'll watch them. Anyway, screw the BCS (British Cardiovascular Society), they haven't helped me once.

CapitalOne Bowl Week preview coming soon!

9. Stephen Colbert will be doing "The Colbert Report" live at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in NYC at 6:30 PM tonight. Man, I wish I had tickets. Regardless, I've been talking about it for years, so I think it's time I saw a comedy show down there. (Whatever happened to the Rascals Comedy Club in the Palisades Mall? Did it ever open? They put a sign up, and that's it?)

8. The New York Times wrote an article on bourbon and didn't even mention Booker's? BLASPHEMY! I guess they didn't taste anything above 101 proof, which is really is a shame: everyone should feel the glorious burn that is Booker's. The top bourbons they chose (Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20-Year-Old ($99), Vintage 17-Year-Old ($54), Knob Creek ($20)) must be pretty damn good, because according to them "Maker's Mark didn't come close". Well then.

7. My favorites from the Tim Tebow Facts: "Tim Tebow can divide by zero" and "Tim Tebow CAN believe it's not butter". I submitted this one: "When Tim Tebow stares at the sun, the sun has to look away".

6. "Funeral for a Fiend" was the funniest Simpsons episode I've seen in a long time, definitely the best of the season. I just really like what Kelsey Grammar does with the Sideshow Bob character. Of course, FOX in their infinite wisdom decided that while every show is in hiatus because of the writers' strike, this Sunday was a good time to show a repeat.

5. The NFL claims to want to "give more football to the fans", but this is clearly not the case. Not only did very few get to see Green Bay get beat by Dallas on Thursday, but they've also eliminated those great Saturday afternoon games, and instead give us one Saturday night matchup. Memo to all sports league commissioners: don't insult my intelligence, just say it's a business decision and move on. My favorite description of the NFL Network: "24 hours of live football, 8736 hours of filler".

BLOGNOSTICATION ALERT: The New England Patriots are going to go undefeated this season, including the playoffs. That's 19-0. Congratulations, Pats!

4. Two new HD channels were added to Cablevision this week: HGTV and Food Network. I can't wait for CSPAN2-HD and Game Show HD, since the latter will allow me to view those "Match Game '79" episodes the way God (and Charles Nelson Reilly) intended.

3. I decided that I would rather go to happy hour early on Friday than attend my company holiday party. Does that make me an alcoholic? No, I think it's just common sense. There was no place to sit when I actually bothered to attend last year, so screw them.

2. After seeing someone post this online, this song was in my head all day. It's Nick Rivers "Skeet Surfin'", from the 1984 movie Top Secret!, one of the most underrated and overlooked comedies of all time.



Nick Rivers & Tammy Wynette "Your Skeetin' Heart" cracks me up every time. The East German National Anthem is priceless too: "Hail, Hail East Germany, Land of Vine And Grape, Land Where You'll Regret, Any Try To Escape!"

1. When you type in "BETTMAN SUCKS" into Google, the first image that comes up in the search is the header for this blog! We're really going places. Oh, and Bettman sucks.

FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON

Hey, it's an excuse to post my first picture taken with the new SD1000 camera: SNOW!

Okay, that's not all that impressive, I know. Even though it was only about 1 inch here in the lowlands of New City barely covering the leaves in the backyard, it at least looks white and wintry around here. We didn't get any appreciable snowfall until Jan 19th last winter. Today was a cold day too, never getting above freezing. Global warming, my ass.