No, I'm talking about the 44-year old Shea Stadium, the multi-purpose monstrosity that has finally closed its doors today. There's nothing special about this dump; it was ugly when I first went there in the late 70s, and it's ugly and outdated now.
Is that it? The 2008 Mets (a team some say "underachieved" but I say "wasn't that good") are done putting the finishing touches on their second straight September collapse? Great. No postseason ball in NYC for the first time since 1993? Beautiful.
Is everyone out of the building? Piazza and Seaver have symbolically closed the center field gates? Yogi finally made it out to his car? (God, that awful pun reminds me of that awful Bon Jovi song "Never Say Goodbye". Thanks for that, idiots.)
Good. It's time to BLOW UP AT SHEA. What? City laws prohibit imploding buildings? Goddamn politicians. Don't they know I need an explosive catharsis? Okay then.
BULLDOZE IT.
Wait, is that Doc Gooden and Straw together for the first time since, well, forever? No, I mustn't be swayed by pointless nostalgia. This place is an ulgy ass eyesore.
DESTROY IT.
No one really cares about it. The stadium housed teams that won IN SPITE OF IT, not because of it. Seriously, get rid of this massive hunk of shit. I don't want to talk about it again.
(I wonder if Yogi knows which stadium farewell party he's at.)
Aw shit, I thought those explosions meant they were about to level the building. Alas, it was only fireworks. Photos courtesy AP/Al Bello-Getty Images
I've hit a blog wall. From day to day, I'm not sure what to blog about. I've got blogger's blogk. I'm suffering from blogspot dysfunction.
I could see if it was because I've had a busy summer, but that's not the case. I don't feel like I did anything constructive, interesting or groundbreaking, and now with August almost over and I feel like I should have been lounging on the beach sipping mai tais for the last few weekends. There's no time like the present, right?
Anyway, why not go to the old fallback position: THINGS I HATE! This time it's a special SPORTS EDITION. Here we go!
The FedEx Cup. This thing is so pointless, I can't even begin to tell you. It's "the playoffs" of golf according to those who started this points system thing, but judging by the sparse crowds at the Barclays in NJ this week no one's buying into it. So who is the #1 point getter? Why it's TIGER WOODS, who has been out for the past 2 months due to knee surgery. Okay, so let's ignore that minor oversight, and instead focus on #2 in line to win this pointless award. It's got to be Padraig Harrington, who won two majors (PGA and The Open), right? Nope, he's astonishingly down at #4, behind FIGJAM! You'll never guess who is the leader: KENNY PERRY. I could not name one tournament I've seen him play in this year, and I watch most of them. To add to this absurdity, all Hunter Mahan had to do to go from #37 to a "projected #1" is shoot a 62 yesterday. Nice try, FedEx, but how about you focus on delivering packages instead of a silly golf playoff format that that no one cares about.
Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. For the past 19 years, New York sports fans have had to put up with this sports radio personality, and his egocentric partner on the "Mike (Francesser) and the Mad Dog" show on WFAN, until he called it quits last week. During his tenure this buffoon is a San Francisco Giants fan and has OPENLY ROOTED AGAINST NEW YORK TEAMS including the Yankees and Mets, and he couldn't give a crap about the Giants or Jets. He knows (and talks) more about tennis and Springsteen than football, hockey, horse racing and basketball combined. How he has amassed a fortune in sports radio is beyond my comprehension. Now he's moving to Sirius XM radio to ply his unfathomable trade. God, I just wish this guy would choke on his own bile.
NBC Sports interrupting sporting events. They're already on my shit list for their hockey coverage (and their sports coverage in general) but they've now hit a new low. I honestly haven't watched much of their insufferable Olympics coverage (except the last 3 Michael Phelps races, which were all irritatingly hyped by an on-screen "Phelps countdown"). Part of the reason I haven't watched is that the vast majority of their events have been on tape delay, so you would think they would show the live events in their entirety since they are so few and far between, right? Alas, that's not the case. On Friday night, they interrupted a mens swim relay to show a commercial, right in the middle of the race, TWICE. NBC, you monumentally suck at broadcasting sports.
Brett Fucking Favre. I don't care, ESPN. I don't care, New York media. I don't care about Brett Favre, where he's going, where he's been, who he's text messaging, what photo op he's attending. I DON'T CARE. Furthermore, despite the giddy excitement by their fans the New York Jets Bretts were NOT one player away from the playoffs, and certainly not a 38 year old QB away. Yes, he will be able to throw those 65 yard bomb interceptions that Chad Paperthin could only dream about. Congratulations to the Jets management for finding a way to sell more jerseys, ones that will look pretty silly in about 18 months or so when he re-retires. Thanks to the media, however, for showing him for what he really is: a selfish player who just wants attention. Well, you will be showered with it in New York, especially negative comments when you fail to make the postseason.
Maybe it's just me being all old and cynical, but I simply didn't love The Dark Knight, the newest Batman movie that everyone is raving about. I'd like to say it's the most overrated movie of the year, but maybe I shouldn't be rating movies like this at all. It's obviously not aimed at me, since I'm neither a teenager or a comic book fan. I thought at the very least I'd enjoy this as a movie fan, but it wasn't satisfying even on that level. Basically, it was a huge disappointment. And screw it, this is my blog so here's my review.
When Tim Burton's Batman was released in 1989, his dark vision and the use of Jack Nicholson in the role of The Joker, it was universally loved by critics and audiences alike; today it seems it has lost a bit of its luster due to the exceedingly campy sequels that followed it. Critics are even retrospectively proclaiming Jack's Joker to be overacting nonsense, which really just means that we've now finally realized that Jack is merely acting like himself in every movie (see: The Departed, Something's Gotta Give, Mars Attacks!). When the Batman franchise was given a makeover in 2005 via the reinvention/rehash/regurgitation Batman Begins, it was hailed as a return to form for the Caped Crusader. I admit, I haven't seen it but I can't imagine it would have enhanced my enjoyment of this latest endeavour. If anything, this movie should have been more satisfying, as the back story was out of the way leaving nothing but storytelling and action.
However, it just seemed like a jam-packed mess to me, leaving me with a feeling akin to being pummeled in the dark for nearly 3 hours. While Heath Ledger was effectively creepy and deranged as The Joker, I can't say that any of the other actors stood out (hey, just like the previously mentioned Batman movie), especially Christian Bale and his scratchy "I just gargled glass" Batman voice. Aaron Eckhart's (as D.A. Harvey Dent) transformation into Two Face was treated as if a switch was flipped, and thus not really believable. Also not believeable or emotionally impacting was the love triangle between Dent, Bruce Wayne and Maggie Gyllenhaal's Brenda Dawes character. I used to like Gary Oldman, but here he had two acting modes, murmuring or screaming; meanwhile, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine were wasted only being used sparingly as affable, smiling old guys.
I know, this is a big fantastical, exploderiffic summer blockbuster movie, so I should forget about the acting and focus on the other stuff like action and storyline--but even those elements left me scratching my head. There were no real jawdropping car chases or action sequences (minus one nifty trick with a tractor trailer), and the jump cuts and low lighting during fight sequences made it difficult to follow. During the entire movie, each scene followed the next so quickly with no establishing shots and little coherence, and the scenes themselves were edited so tightly, that half the time I thought I missed a few lines of dialogue or action. At one point I thought that maybe half the movie was explained in the first movie, or hopefully would be explained later (what did they go to Hong Kong for?), but that never happened. I thought that if I stuck with it, it would start to make sense and build to an effective ending, but it got more convoluted as it went on. And on. And on. No, it never "dragged" per se, it was just relentless. It was as if director Christopher Nolan was throwing expensive set pieces in your face with little regard for how they would propel the plot. After one and a half hours, I had had enough . . . and then realized it still had an hour to go.
". . . this movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isn't shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. "The Dark Knight" is constant climax; it's always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever. Nothing is prepared for, and people show up and disappear without explanation; characters are eliminated with a casual nod."
Personally, I can't recall the last comic book movie adaptation that I've enjoyed. While Spiderman was entertaining, I almost felt like I forced myself into liking it, but looking back it was just a novelty and I have no desire to ever watch it again. (The novelty wore off with the exceedingly silly Spiderman 2, and I don't plan on sitting through Spiderman 3, or 4, when it inevitably comes out). The newest attempt at the Man of Steel story Superman Returns was brought nothing new to the table, and I still think the casting of Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man, which I haven't seen, is questionable at best. As for recent big screen adaptations of The Hulk (twice), The X-Men and Fantastic Four, none of them have interested me. I officially call this superhero trend over when Seth Rogen stars as the title character in The Green Lantern. (Yes, that's actually going to happen.)
While The Dark Knight had some well-crafted scenes and I respected the overall attempt at a more realistic, dark tone, I honestly didn't think it was anything special. Since the general consensus for this movie has been excellent, I guess it's just not my thing. Either way this is officially the last comic book movie I willingly see in the theater, unless they make the new and improved version 18 years from now, which seems inevitable.
This is a collection of garbage (or as my 2 year old nephew calls it, "garboop") that doesn't really belong in its own post, but also doesn't belong in my head. It's BLOGARBAGE!
Because of my illustrious job, I get generic drug prescriptions for free (the one and only perk). However, this time around I got an antibiotic from Watson, probably made by disgruntled employees at the Carmel, NY plant (where I used to work). As Rob said, hopefully these were made before the plant closing announcement and employees found out their jobs are being outsourced to India. That doesn't change the fact that I feel like my innards were scrubbed clean with a wire brush.
I understand having 40coffeeplaces in the mall: you want everyone to be well caffeinated (is there second-hand caffeination?) while they're shopping. But do we really need 3 soft pretzel vendors? The Palisades Mall has Auntie Anne's, Pretzel Time and Wetzel's Pretzels, for some unknown reason. Auntie Anne's is by far the best one, probably because each bite contains a pound of rich creamery butter. The other two can close down and make way for more cell phone vendors, which we also don't need.
Despite what Bud Light's commercials tell me, I am NEVER typing in "dudemadness" into my browser. One spelling error will direct you to gay porn. Actually, that might not be worse than Bud Light (according to unnamed sources).
The detestable word "bling" was used in the headline of an article about Sarkozy in the Wall Street Journal. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the word is officially dead. Oh, and the WSJ, now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is also dead to me.
Something I found out about China: the men prefer the women to have flat asses, and even have surgical procedures to reduce their ass size. Good to know they're just as fucked up as we are.
Google GMail chat calls their little animated smiley faces "emotisprites". I didn't think I could hate a word more than that.
I used to defend the state commonwealth of Massachusetts by saying, "Eh, it's not bad. Cape Cod's pretty, and Boston's a nice town . . ." and then I ran out of steam. But after sitting in traffic on the Mass Pike at 10 PM on a Sunday night, I had an epiphany: I have no fucking use for Massachusetts. What have they ever given us? The Kennedys? Big fucking deal. Everything they provide, some other nearby state does better. Restaurants? New York. Taxes? New Hampshire. Beaches? Maine. Skiing? Vermont. Historical landmarks? Philadelphia. Sports radio? Anywhere. Boston is run by a marble mouthed moron, the Big Dig project was a giant disaster plagued by cost overruns, accidents and corruption, the average ticket price for a ballame at Fenway costs over $50, and after you drive past Worcester it's a complete wasteland. And Mass drivers are the worst, as they combine the erratic style of New York drivers and the reckless speed of New Jersey drivers. Seriously, screw the Bay State and all the Massholes in it. (You know who you are; if you laughed at this, you're not a Masshole.)
I just heard someone say that their family traditionally eats rabbit on Easter Sunday. Really? I'm going to guess that the same family doesn't allow their kids to believe in the Easter bunny, otherwise they'd be scarred for life. "Remember when I said the Easter bunny delivered all that candy? Well, as he was trying to hop out of the house, I shot him dead, skinned him and threw him in the oven. Man, he sure looks tasty! EAT UP, KIDS!"
On that note allow me to leave you with a commercial, because I have nothing else to add. It's a classic M&M's commercial from the 80s.
