Red Stripe and Chronic

I'm Going Crackers!

2010-02-15T10:19:00.006-05:00

I have to disagree a little there, dtro. The Giants season was not quite Metsian in that they actually made kind of an effort, and for a while deserved to be called one of the better teams in the league (shit, in Week Five [do we capitalize the weeks now? Is the NFL that important? I say yes] I would have told you they were the undisputed #1). Also, the Giants front office managed to get to work every morning without accidentally slitting their throats shaving. But looking closely, the parallels are obvious. Both teams seemed to expect success and then had absolutely no idea what to do when it didn't come. At the first sign of real resistance, both teams decided that they weren't at fault, but it was the cruel whims of fate that were punishing them and they simply needed the skies to open up and provide them with the winning performance they deserved. Now, I look at both teams from the point of their last great success. The Mets making the NLCS in 06, and the Giants' run in late 07 leading up to their Super Bowl win. These events were where this sense of "this is a winning team" came from. There is generally a consensus of who the better teams are, and thanks to ESPN's power rankings we can see this quantified every week. And for those moments, we saw our team at or near the top of the heap. All the time we saw the Patriots, Steelers or Yankees (teams we hate because we have hearts and brains) at the top makes it all the more sweet to see our team heading the list. It makes us happy, makes us more enthusiastic fans, and redeems the stress and frustration we put ourselves through watching millionaires play kid's games. The effects of this on the team themselves seem to manifest itself in catching breaks, getting lucky, and winning through sheer determination. Our guys are the best, ignore anybody who says otherwise. And why shouldn't we feel this way? It's a diversion, after all. Our lives are not so invested in this thing that we should worry about the pressure we put on them when we say theyre the best. They'll never hear us, anyway. That's the way it's always been, at least. But really, these guys don't work in a vacuum anymore. The interaction with the public goes much deeper than signing autographs before the game. Now Twitter and Facebook and such means we can stalk athletes better than ever before, and they can tweet funny pictures or recommend shitty comedians directly to their fans, but that's not really anything that'll effect their performance. The big effect of the media I would have to say is the nonstop analysis, and observation of their work, through the wonderful efforts of that Pravda of sports hegemony, ESPN. We are at the point where ESPN has almost become sports. It's the channel we instantly turn to when we even think of sports. Television, internet, even that terrible magazine, ESPN's dominance in sports media means what ESPN says, goes. Now, there are other forms of sports media, sure. Sports Illustrated was once the paragon of sports information, but we are now at the point where a weekly magazine cannot possibly cover everything we deem to be important, or at least worthy of our attention. And it's in the pages of SI, which manages to maintain some charm by simply being the printed word, that we see the most obvious sign of how these athletes are effected by media. In every issue, SI features a little info box with athletes sharing their favorite foods, music, what they think of trivial current events, and such. In these little nuggets of semi-information, we really get somewhat of an insight into how these athletes really think. Unshockingly, their tastes in music and movies gravitate toward what's popular at the time. Whatever. We don't expect them to be men of high culture, they play games for a living (except Adonal Foyle, a sports outlier to end all sports outliers). But whenever they are asked their favorite TV show, with the exception of the odd soccer or tennis player, every answer, down the line, is Sportscenter. The implications of this are big, and depressing. Sportscenter, as we all know, is the propaganda arm of ESPN, and by extension, the whole sports media. Stories' importance is decided literally by how much coverage they get on SC. And when they lump an inordinate amount of coverage on an issue, like Terrell Owens or Brett Favre, then that very saturation becomes the story. We're more self-aware as people right now than we ever were in history. We get nostalgic for things that happened less than a decade ago. Every minor event seems to require some kind of recognition. Now, pro athletes have a daily TV show that is completely about them and the little world they inhabit. SC has made fans out of the athletes themselves. Read any player's survey of who, say, they think will win the NBA title this year. They invariably will say Lakers or Celtics. Can we really pretend that this is trenchant insight, shared by the men who understand the game far deeper than we ever will? Or are they just parroting the hype of the media? When athletes become ESPN fans, their opinions are as worthless as that of the idiot at the end of any bar, parroting whatever Mark Schlereth said as statement of unvarnished fact. Which brings me back to the Giants and Mets. The Hawthorne Effect tells us that the act of observation by itself changes performance. These men are continually observing themselves, watching highlights of their games, seeing appraisals of their performance. When they are playing at their apex, they are lionized as the gold standard of the sport. When they begin to fail, to make mistakes, they are just as dumbfounded as we are! There's barely any gap between our assessment of their performance and their own (though we are of course much harsher). The Giants are the best team in the NFL, the media says, and the worst thing the Giants can do is begin to believe it. This goes for coaches, too. I had the pleasure of listening to Jerry Manuel repeat himself on WFAN after every single loss, every team failure. It was the same thing we were used to hearing from Willie Randolph as his team trended downward. "We need to get hot." "We need to start playing winning baseball." What the fuck kind of thing to say is that??? How does that even begin to address the problem? Now, I don't doubt that they were giving this line to the media as they attempted to really fix problems within the team. But what was the end result? They never "got hot," as they did in 06. The Giants of 09 sure "cut down on mistakes" but that didn't mean they could do a goddamn thing to stop DeSean Jackson. ESPN makes us treat these rote responses as the actual issue at hand, since that's all they have to work with. But when the line between athlete and fan as observer of the sport is blurred, they're just as ignorant as we are.

The Year in Sports. Or how the Jets temporarily made me less depressed, part 1?

2010-02-03T11:01:00.012-05:00

Well, Mr. Boyce did a bang-up job giving us a rundown of the best and worst of the best movies of the past year yesterday. I think he deserves a round of applause.../waits for applause/.../waits/...is anyone even here? Oh well. Anyway, he has inspired me to make one of my bi-seasonal posts and to break up the cinematic rote we seem to have fallen into here, I'll make it about sports. I suppose I could write about another topic: like maybe TV...but all I watch on TV are sporting events and movies.

To recap, I root for the Mets, Jets, Michigan football, and Georgetown basketball and probably in that order although I can't really say for sure. So what has been going on with these teams and where do they stand right now? I'm glad you asked.

Jason Bay dying inside

The Mets of New York Town

The 2009 New York Mets were cursed by the goddamn devil, who struck them down with a ridiculous number of injuries. This was not to prevent their winning baseball games but rather to mask the utter incompetence of the front office and allow Omar Minaya to keep his job as L'il Freddy Wilpon's trained monkey/fall guy for another offseason. And what did Señor Minaya do with his borrowed time to fix this roster? He signed poor Jason Bay in a thin attempt to hide the Wilpons' cynical contempt for Mets fans, who they consider so stupid as to believe that they are actually trying to field a championship-caliber baseball team. Here is the Wilpons' true goal: enough "meaningful" late-season games and a "big name" signing or two to trick us into packing into their beautiful little publicly-funded, TARP-sponsored ~~restaurant emporium~~ ~~Dodger museum~~ ballpark and lining their pockets (which incidentally were actually deepened by Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme, the fucking schmucks). Oh I can out-cynical you all day Fred and Jeff, so don't even try me.

Going into the offseason the Mets had as I see it: no MLB-caliber 1B, no MLB-caliber starting catcher, no MLB-caliber RF or LF, 2 reliable MLB-caliber starting pitchers--one of whom was recovering from surgery, while the other continued his life-long battle with the Yips--followed by a bunch of question marks (does anyone realize that the Mets' 3rd and 4th best starters right now are Jon Niese and Nelson Figueroa?!! And they won't even make the team out of Spring Training! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!), a 2B with no knees, a bullpen that lost "star reliever" JJ Putz, and a continuing lack of MLB-ready depth behind key players. What were Omar's solutions to these numerous and variegated problems?

Alex Cora--$2 Mil with a vest. Had to lock him up before the bidding war ensued I guess.

Jeff Francoeur--$5 Mil. He might swing the bat so hard he hits himself in the back of the head, so there's that. What I'm saying is: his potential comedy value far exceeds his baseball value.

Jason Bay--4 years/$66 Mil with a goddmanmotherfucking vest. Just a wee bit of an overpay there, Omar.

Henry Blanco/Chris Coste/Omir Santos--Gotta catch 'em all! Crappy backups!

Kelvim Escobar/Ryota Igarashi/some other guys--I actually like the Escobar signing and it's always nice to have a Japanese guy on the team. I guess we'll see how the bullpen shakes out.

Fernando Tatis--whatever. He's a perfectly cromulent bench player.

Gary Matthews Jr.--fuck my life.

Nothing else. That's freakin' it! They might sign John Smoltz (or as Ron Darling would say, "John Schmoltz)for some pitching insurance, but he is, as you may recall, 73 years old. Seriously, the guy is six degrees of separation from Old Hoss Radbourn, who threw 678 innings(!) for the 1884 Providence Grays.

I could also get into the Beltran surgery fiasco (guess whose side I'm on) or the fact that JJ Putz was never given a physical last year and then allowed to pitch in the WBC, despite the fact that he had been injured the year before and the Mets had just traded a bazillion prospects for him, but that would just be piling on to my own misery. Suffice it to say, I am not very happy with the current state of the Mets nor am I particularly sanguine about their chances in 2010.

I was going to break down the other teams, but I clearly get long-winded when it comes to complaining about the Mets. We'll save the Jets, Wolverines, and Hoyas for a part 2. And perhaps Boyce will chime in with some thoughts on the Giants and their rather Metsian season.

OSCAR NOMS TWO THOUSAND AND THEN TEN: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE DISTRACTIONS

2010-02-02T11:17:00.009-05:00

A Serious Man. Inglorious Basterds. The Hurt Locker. District 9. Up. An Education. Up In The Air. Precious. The Blind Side. Avatar. These are the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, listed in the order in which their nomination makes me least want to kill myself. Keep in mind, these are what have been determined by the Academy, "a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures," to be the best of the 256 movies released in the US in 2009. Fair enough.

{FULL DISCLOSURE: I have only seen five of these movies. All opinions are based on my own prejudices and laser-sharp ability to understand movies based on their public perception, critical response, and how they are marketed. Following the rules of this blog, everything I say here is to be regarded as the unvarnished truth and is to be understood by the reader as the correct opinion. OK?} OK. Each year we learn the consensus of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as to what the "best" (most relevant? most resonant with audiences? most brilliantly adept at advancing the art and science of motion pictures? ok, that last one was a joke) movie released at the end of 2009 was. Pretty much just the end. Only Hurt Locker, District 9, Basterds, and the cartoon were released before the start of "awards season," where the movies that have been decided we as moviegoers will like the most are released. The fact that such a "season" exists tells you all you need to know about the Oscars. The "big" "shock" of this years Best Picture nominations was that Grandpa Clint's "Invictus" didn't get one. ||Now, there's another movie I didnt see, but i did hear it briefly summarized by a trusted fellow cineaste (he also works here, in this website) and wouldn't you know it, it sounded exactly like the commercials promised. But I digress. Boy, do I digress.|| If the point of these awards is to reward the best of American cinema, why do the movies that end up winning these awards all get released around the same time, by the same studios, with the same promotional campaigns? Miramax recently went under, minus Weinsteins, and every retrospective article had to make mention of all the oscars they managed to collect. Like seriously, fucking Shakespeare in Love? SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE?!??!??? These stupid statues lose their meaning when being the biggest, meanest Jews in LA means your company wins all of them. And wouldn't you know, the newly minted Weinstein Company's offerings lead the pack with 13 nods this year.

You were almost guaranteed Oscars if Miramax released your movie.
Unless you were MARTIN FUCKING SCORSESE

RESOLVED: The Oscar nominations are a result of pr campaigns in trade papers and machinations we will never see (unlike the ACTUAL GODDAMN MOVIES WHICH WE WILL PAY MUCH LOOT TO SEE).
I can hear you now: "Duh, Boyce! These studios are the ones who finance the movies, even the smaller ones! Obviously they hold all the power in the movie world! Just fuckin deal with it, you pussy!" First off, low blow. Second, if you're going to cede something so subjective as "Best Picture of the Year" to the economic engineering of giant conglomerates then why even try to make such a distinction? Just give a trophy to whoever makes the most money and call it a year!
Which brings me to Avatar. I don't think it's worth anyone's time for me to discuss the movie itself, we've all heard the talking points: it's simplistic, too much emphasis on special effects, the girl alien gave me a boner, blah, blah, blah. What's important about Avatar for my purposes is that this movie is going to win (yes it is going to win, this isn't a prediction piece, remember, I am just telling you the facts) Best Picture because it A) Had awesome special effects and B) cashed in bigger than the Red Cross. The fact that it made so much dolo is not the sole reason it's going to win, oh, no, it's a little more than that. Think back to the word we kept hearing on top of all the Avatar hype. That this movie was going to be "revolutionary." Yes, the revolution is here. Was it the plot? Anybody who's seen more than two movies can tell you it was a hackneyed concept, even before Costner won Best Picture (He did! Look it up!) for making it about Indians. Performances? LOLS! Was it the special effects? Yes, but not completely. Every year movies comes out that have amazing, jaw-dropping CGI. There are tons of people who will choose their viewing experience because it's some kind of special effects extravaganza. Shit, those Transformers movies made a shit-ton of moneys and they didn't even have actors or a script! Avatar was revolutionary for this one reason: It made movies more expensive. Not to make, to see. Avatar didn't break all the box office records because it caught the zeitgeist of this era and captivated audiences, or even wowed them with spectacular effects. Avatar broke those records because You Paid More To See It! That's your revolution! Those stupid fucking glasses! Yes, the 3D effects were cool but can you really see any filmmaker taking it beyond that? Is there another level of comprehension of films unknown to us in two dimensions? Of fucking course not! Now we can witness the revolution in full. Take a gander at any list of upcoming action movies for 2010-11. Realize that they are all in "3D." Take a second to consider whether these movies would have come out in 2D (or "regular D"). Then commit suicide. Or just don't see them. Whatevs.

"DUHHHHHH"

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I don't really know what to say. None of those other movies are going to win. Sure, Hurt Locker has the next-best chance. But remember in the first place why there are ten nominees. The concern here is ratings for the Oscar telecast. Since the Dark Knight got completely fucking robbed of a nomination last year, and that probably cost ABC a good chunk of viewers, the Academy figured that their only key to continued legitimacy is TV ratings. And don't nobody wanna see some war movie with guys what they never heard of, where they kill Ralph Fiennes (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE?!?!?!??) as soon as he gets on screen and there ain't no big battle at the end, win Best Picture. Sorry, Kathryn Bigelow. Cameron took your heart and stomped on it, and now he's taking your Oscar chances and doing the same. I really liked the Hurt Locker, too. Saw it twice, wasn't as good the second time. I won't watch Avatar again.
As a courtesy, here are the rest of your nominees with a little bitching about each. Except An Education. I don't even think the actors in that movie have heard of it.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
I'm not joking. Thats the whole name of the fucking movie. Good to see Dusty Rhodes' Saweeeeeeet Sapphire finally getting the recognition she deserves. Seriously though, this is one of the ones i didn't see. Saw the shit out of the trailer, though. And read most all the reviews. This whole movie smacks of poverty porn. I first heard that term in a review of "Born Into Brothels" and the same concept is at work here. Look at how shitty her life is! Isn't it terrible? Feel bad! Now watch worse things happen! Wasn't that terrible? Aren't your heartstrings getting worn out from all that tugging? Also, getting Mo'Nique to act as an angry bitch, I'm sorry, doesn't seem like a huge stretch. mmmmHM.

Pictured: Douchebag
Inset: Douchebag

Up In The Air
If I hadn't shot my load on Avatar hate, this post would be all about George Clooney. How an actor gets so far with what he has I'll never know. He must give a mean blowjob to be able to play his smug, smartassed/sincere charming "self" in every movie he appears in. He's got plenty of charisma, thats for sure. He's great in every Coens movie I've seen him in. Michael Clayton was alright, but definitely didnt break any ground. (Side-bitch: how did Tilda Swinton win Best Supporting for that movie? She was in two scenes! One of them was a shot of her sweating on a toilet!) I just don't want to live in a world where the "biggest" movie "star" we have plays himself as serious or himself as hilariously charming in everything he's in. I said it in my first post and I'll say it again: Go fuck yourself, Clooney.

Up
This movie has almost the same title as that last one, but don't take your kids to this one expecting Ed Asner fucking Vera Farmiga in a balloon! Or something. I don't see the point of nominating this for both Best Picture and Best Animated Picture. They only invented that animated category just so they wouldn't have to waste BP nominations on Pixar movies. It's the same reason The New York Times started a children's bestseller list; so their super-important List wouldn't get that stupid Harry Potter shit all over it. Up is going to win Best animated, thats for sure. Take that, Neil Gaiman!

The face of Jewish vengeance. I'm down.

Inglourious Basterds
I'm gonna put down my hate scepter for a hot second, cause this movie fucking ruled. The opening scene alone could be released on its own and Christoph Waltz would have won Best Actor instead of Best Supporting. It didn't even end up really being about the Basterds themselves and nobody cared. Call it alternative history, or a revenge fantasy, or just say it was a huge kick in the nuts (if getting kicked in the nuts was fun and exciting). Go ahead, I'm waiting. I can't really do this justice, since hatred is my medium, but if there was anything to hate about Inglourious Basterds, you only saw that because youre a stupid asshole who hates fun. Seriously. This movie made me jump when a guy ordered a glass of milk at a restaurant. That's great filmmaking.

It's like, the aliens are nie-blankes. And Humans are the blankes. That seriously how they differentiated the races in South Africa? White and Not White?

District 9
You know, I really liked this movie, too. It had characters we cared about, a coherent yet nuanced plot, and a relevant message about humanity. I just thought it completely blew all the goodwill from that with the third act, in which the protagonist, a timid and bullied bureaucrat, becomes John Rambo. I don't mind them dropping the documentary aspect (that was necessary to advance the plot), but don't transform the entire movie with half an hour to go. That said, this was a good one. 3/5*

Not pictured: Sass, spunk

The Blind Side
Sweet Jesus Lord. The fact that this even got nominated. I can't even finish that sentence. I'm sure Sandra Bullock was great in it, but come on. This is tripe. It was nominated solely because it made so much goddamn money. At least it didn't have blue cat-people. Then they'd rename the fucking awards after it. I'd be madder but it's not going to win. It's here so that people who wear sweatpants to church will watch the Oscars. On ABC!

A Serious Man
The only thing that would have made this movie better was if the tagline was "Let's Get Serious!" In all honesty, this was the best movie of the year. The Coens are just fucking amazing. They managed to make a movie about a miserable guy, who has terrible stuff happen to him nonstop for 100 minutes, one of the funniest of the year. See, this movie had an actual theme: the failure of religion and "understanding" to truly solve problems. At least that's how I saw it. That's the beauty of a movie that's actually good; it can be interpreted, considered. You probably have to see it more than once to fully grasp and appreciate it. What Cameron did took a shitload of talent and balls, I won't deny that. But disposable popcorn fare should not be the gold standard for cinema. And if you want to call it the Best Picture of the year, well, Go fuck yourself.

My reaction to the Tiger Woods cheating scandal

2009-12-13T12:46:00.003-05:00

We're talking about a golfer here people! Who the fuck cares?!! Any Tiger Woods related news is inherently uninteresting because Tiger Woods and the game he plays are uninteresting. Good fucking Lord is there nothing else to be talk about on sports related websites/tv shows?

Belated Movie Reviews of 2009, part 2

2009-11-17T21:28:00.011-05:00

Well, here we are with a scheduled post. Pretty impressive, huh? And if you're still interested in reading my take on the movies I saw this year, well then you've come to the right place. So, let's get to it.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Review: My personal opinion of the Harry Potter movies is that they're better to see if you haven't read the books. Luckily, I only read the first 3 and even those I don't really remember, so I was going into this one well prepared. The reason these movies are better to see with no prior knowledge is that you can actually appreciate them as movies without constantly thinking about all the stuff they left out or changed from the book version. And so I thought this movie was ok. I don't really remember the details of the story, but I think it went something like: the evil Lord Voldemort is out to get Harry, but with help from his friends and professors and the discovery of some hidden magic secret, he is able to overcome the odds or something like that. I guess they're all pretty much the same, but still they're ok. Actually, I think this was the worst of the Harry Potter movies, because it spent a lot of time trying to prove that they were all teenagers and had hormones and experienced young love and all that shit. I think that stuff is better kept to Twilight movies, because at least in those you know they're going to suck and be completely lacking in plot. So yeah, this movie's actual story suffered as a result of the teenage expository stuff, which was pretty conventional and boring. Nonetheless the Harry Potter movies look cool and there was enough to keep me interested. Maybe I'm just cutting it some slack because LCT seemed to hate it and I like to disagree with him.

Bonus Points: I'm actually going to have to deduct points from this one, because I paid extra money and went to see it in 3-D and the 3-D wasn't that great and ended after the opening scene of like five minutes. Total fucking waste.

Final Score: A middling 3.0 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. Has some of the good elements of the other Harry Potter movies, but is hurt by too much focus on the characters' love lives. I came to see some crazy magic shit and I really don't care anything about the characters since they're played by terrible child actors with annoying British accents.

District 9

Review: I think the biggest beef I have with this movie is how ludicrously overhyped it was. I have other beefs, which I will soon outline, but this movie is currently #88 on IMDB's top 250 movies...of ALL TIME. C'mon now people, this was a pretty good movie but I just can't fathom why everyone is jizzing themselves just thinking about it. Is it the Peter Jackson connection? Because the Lord of the Rings movies were seriously overrated too. Maybe he just has that effect on people. Anyway, this movie is a twist on the classic alien movie, because it's about aliens coming to earth and actually being less powerful than humans. Apparently their spacecraft broke down in the sky above Johannesburg and all the ruling class died out, leaving the dregs of society to fend for themselves in a makeshift ghetto in South Africa. I have to admit, it's a pretty clever retelling of alien movies and it is pretty interesting through the first two-thirds or so when it's basically a "documentary" centering around the government employee who has to deal with the alien problem and their relocation. That part is pretty good with some minor flaws, one of which is that the faux-documentary thing has been done to death at this point. Christopher Guest movies, The Office, Parks and Recreation, etc. We fucking get it at this point and it's no longer an interesting way to tell a story, but more of a crutch that allows characterization through direct monologues to the camera. Also, in the earlier "good" part of District 9, I found the apartheid parallels pretty heavy handed. I'm all for a good allegory, but this was an obvi-gory that was smacking us in the face saying "Hey guys, remember how fucked up South Africa was and how it can happen to any society and how racism is bad?" Yeah, we fucking get it.

Even with those drawbacks the first 60% or so of the movie was clearly several notches above a typical alien sci-fi movie and quite good. And then the last part of the movie showed up and it all devolved into a typical Hollywood shoot em up, where the two guys who couldn't get along have to band together to take down the bad guys with crazy guns, a bunch of explosions, and a mech suit that would have looked really cool in 1996.

Bonus Points: for the random bursts of extreme violence in the early parts of the movie, when it was still in documentary mode. I find nothing funnier than a bureaucrat reasoning with a giant cockroach looking alien and the alien randomly kicking him 60 feet in the air and shattering his spine. The violence in the early part of the movie was understated and surprising, unlike the stylized garbage at the end.

Final Score: a pretty good 3.8 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. I gotta give it higher than Star Trek, because it took a lot more creativity to come up with, but it did not live up to either its potential or its hype.

Inglourious Basterds

Review: This movie was off the fucking chain. Seriously, I thought this movie was just completely awesome throughout and I'm definitely not some Tarantino fanboy. It's Quentin Tarantino completely reimagining World War II by having a bunch of Jewish soldiers going around killing and scalping Nazis and then coming up with a crazy plot to kill Hitler. It wasn't perfect: Eli Roth as the "Bear Jew" was pretty horrendous for his few lines and Brad Pitt (who I'm only starting to forgive for the terrible Benjamin Button) walked a fine line between funny and so one-note that it's annoying. Everything else was spot on. I've heard that people complained that Tarantino gets a little too wrapped up in the dialogue and the movie gets bogged down because of it, but in the two long sequences of talking--the showdown in the tavern and Landa's interrogation of the farmer--the dialogue was interesting and served to build up suspense to a high pitch. If you want to see Tarantino get wrapped up in dialogue, go watch the first hour of Death Proof. That dialogue is atrocious, but the dialogue in Basterds was good. Christoph Waltz, the guy who played the villain Hans Landa, was fucking superb throughout the movie being a smarmy, evil, charming dickhead Nazi and pulling it off in several languages. That guy needs to get an Oscar. I guess it was a little annoying when Tarantino winked at the audience a little with his Samuel Jackson voice-over and the big bright 70s letters introducing certain chapters of the movie, but it didn't detract from the film as a whole. The climactic scene in the theater was actually a bit of a let down after such awesome build up, but that's just because it's not quite as good as some of the earlier scenes (particularly the two dialogue-heavy ones mentioned above), but Brad Pitt's revenge on Hans Landa was a satisfying conclusion.

Bonus Points: for shooting Hitler's fucking face off with a machine gun. I think you're kind of wondering the whole time how Tarantino is going to deal with the question of Hitler and what really happened in WWII and then he just says fuck history and kills him in an awesomely gruesome way. Bravo, sir. It's unfortunate that some dumbass kids are going to think that's how WWII really went down, but fuck 'em; they're going to die poor and ignorant anyway.

Final Score: an unprecedented 4.5 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. I don't really feel like giving anything a perfect score, but this was without doubt the best movie I saw this year. Any faults I find are merely nitpicking, because on the whole it was totally excellent.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Review: Well, it's a Michael Moore movie so you kinda know what to expect at this point. Totally scattered thoughts and narrative at certain points, wildly draw conclusions from evidence that is lacking, and an attack on those goddamn fat cats told with a liberal bent. So Capitalism isn't perfect. In fact, it's almost certainly inferior to Sicko and Bowling for Columbine (and I presume, Roger and Me, which I've never seen) but it is certainly calmer, more focused, and less Moore-ish than Fahrenheit 9/11, which is a good thing. Basically, Moore is trying to say that America's blind adherence to capitalism to the subjugation even of democracy as our highest ideal, is not necessarily that great a thing. It's not that he wants us all to become pinkos or something, just that he wants us to realize what exactly the sick immoral disgusting bastards on Wall St. and in boardrooms did to fuck our economy in the ass and how equally evil and corrupt politicians in our nation's capital are only marginally interested in helping out the majority of the country. Along the way, Moore does bring up some very interesting points--like how Goldman Sachs is basically running this fucking country and how the bailout was maybe not as necessary as we thought and is not at all being overseen by government watchdogs. This stuff is pretty good: edifying and rabble-rousing at the same time.

The problem is when Moore tries to pull off his everyman act. Empty displays of anger and justice-seeking like being a dick outside Wall St. office buildings to make citizens arrests in the name of the American people is just a waste of his and our time. Also, the whole scene where he has the trader try to explain derivatives and such to explain how debt became a valued commodity in the American marketplace is just insulting. He asks the guy to explain some admittedly complicated financial stuff and then constantly interrupts him with these "Gee willickers, this sure is confusing and hard to understand for us regular folks on Main St." dickish questions. I get his point, i.e. how the hell did our economy move from manufacturing and service to becoming dependent on labyrinthine financial workings of the Ivy League super-elite. But treat the audience with a little more respect than that. At least TRY to explain some of it and don't act like you're too dumb (because you're not) and we're too dumb to possibly rap our little middle or lower class heads around this stuff.

Bonus Points: for including that economic and philosophical wizard Wallace Shawn, and finally giving him the platform to expound his opinions. Actually, I'm not sure if this is positive or negative points. It was just odd and confusing.

Final Score: a decent 3.7 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. It had its flaws but I walked out of the theater wanting to skin a bank executive alive after boiling him in a vat for several hours to make his skin more loose and pliant and therefore easier to remove from his muscular system. And that's a good thing.

The Hurt Locker

Review: I think this was my second favorite movie of the year. It's set a couple years ago and is basically just following three guys around Baghdad as they serve their tour as bomb defusers. It is not especially romanticized or even really dramatized with a ton of personal looks at the three main characters. There is one brief "I gotta get out of here" speech near the end, but it is muted and fitting with the events of the movie. Otherwise, for the most part I think it is an attempt to accurately depict what life is like for some soldiers over in Iraq and it definitely seems very realistic. What dramatizing there is in the movie happens from the innate drama of being in the middle of a fucking war and is not shoved into the movie in other ways. My only minor issues were that I found the little Iraqi kid that the main character takes a shine to quite annoying and, in fact, that whole relationship walks the line of feeling forced and sentimental but I think it works ok. Also, I prefer the conclusion of the movie, which is something like-the main character comes home to the US but is really anxious and bored and actually can't wait to get back to Iraq because he's basically a crazy-ass adrenaline junkie who doesn't really work as well in any other setting than the fucked up one that is Iraq. I certainly prefer this finale to the "soldier comes home, can't readjust, is haunted by war experiences, his life sucks at home" finish that has been covered adequately in numerous other war movies. But it still just reinforces my impression that a lot of people in the military are either stupid or insane or both and have joined for those reasons. Oh well, maybe that's just me.

Bonus Points: for immediately killing the only two actors who are really recognizable. Guy Pearce gets his head exploded inside of a bomb-defusing spaceman suit in the opening scene, and Ralph Fiennes gets shot in the neck a couple minutes after appearing as a British special forces guy. I liked that for some reason.

Final Score: A very good 4.25 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. Just a very good little movie. I don't know if it really got a lot of attention, because it didn't have any big stars, but it is definitely worth checking out.

Alright, folks, that's it. In summation, Inglourious Basterds was awesome, as was The Hurt Locker. District 9 is worth watching, just don't expect to see one of the greatest movies of all time. And...you know there's no point to summing it all up. It seems that I didn't give any of these movies a truly terrible review, which is disappointing, because bad reviews are much better than positive ones. It's always more fun (and especially so for a pessimistic hater like me) to rip on stuff than to praise it. And so I want to leave you with this: in the past two years there have been 10 movies nominated for the Academy Award for best picture. This is the award of awards for movies, and watch them or no (and whatever your take on the idea of deciding a "winner" in a field that is so overtly subjective) I still think they're a pretty big deal. 2 of those 10 movies, i.e. 20% of them, were Juno and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Now, I know I just said movie opinions were inherently a subjective and personal thing, but objectively speaking those 2 movies were the most wretched piles of festering dogshit committed to film in recent memory. Oh, and also Mad Money--worst movie ever.

Belated Movie Reviews of 2009, part 1

2009-11-16T22:23:00.008-05:00

Well in my laziness of not updating this blog for months on end I have neglected to keep you, dear reader, fully informed of my opinions on movies that I went to see in the theater this year. By my reckoning, I went to see 9 movies since I last did a movie review post. Now since I know you have all been clamoring to hear my personal take on a select group of movies I actually went to see in the theater this year, most of which I only vaguely remember, I have decided to condense these 9 movies down into one small megapost. And away we go:

Star Trek

Review:This was a pretty good movie. A bit run-of-the-mill action thillerish, but at the high end of that spectrum. The effects and action in this movie were first rate, the acting was Oscar-worthy (jk lolz), and there were even some shout outs to the true Trekkies out there. Wait, on second thought, I didn't like that at all. This was the Star Trek movie that was supposed to be a mainstream hit and it was, and still the producers/director felt they had to make some sort of homage to old Star Trek shit with a Leonard Nimoy cameo (and frankly the only Nimoy cameo that was worth a damn was on The Springfield Files). They didn't have to do that. The reason this movie was a hit was because it wasn't a boring pile of space nerdery like everything else Star Trek and those who took extreme interest in Star Trek (those eponymous Trekkies of douchefag fame) prior to this film deserve to be ostracized and shunned from society--not pandered to. Also, I think the plot was a bit jumbled up and relied on time travel and had some holes, but I can't really remember that at this point.

Bonus Points: for a Simon Pegg appearance. That guy is a legend based on Hot Fuzz alone.

Final Score: A solid 3.7 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. It was about all you could ask for in a summer blockbuster type movie.

Angels & Demons

Review: This movie was meh. I don't think it's quite as terrible as people make it out to be and I think the same is true of The DaVinci Code. The problem with these movies is that Dan Brown is such a good story plotter and such a mediocre prose writer that these books were read by everybody. Now when stupid people read their first book since 7th grade they have a tendency to believe "THis is the bestest book evar!!1!" And so, because the general populace is generally worse at judging the quality of books than the quality of movies (because people see way more movies than read books), they get all upset when a mediocre movie is made from a book they considered to be awesome. Those Dan Brown books (and I've only actually read A&D) were ok, but they took on some sort of cultural significance far beyond their actual literary merit. Also, they very much relied on omniscient narration of a character's thoughts, which you can only do in a movie if Morgan Freeman has time to lend his voice.

Anyway, the movie had a solid hour long stretch in the middle that was paced quickly with enough suspense and action to keep me well entertained. Unfortunately, the movie was well over 2 hours and droned on and on about "science vs. faith" which is a pretty uninteresting argument. Science one that argument a long time ago in my book by using "facts" and "reality." Maybe that debate plays better in the heartland, I don't know.

Bonus Points: for Tom Hanks cutting his hair a bit and being a little less creepy, but it was really only a very little less creepy so not a ton of bonus points.

Final Score: A meh 2.7 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. Some good parts in the middle, but it really is a tough type of book to make a movie out of and the science/faith stuff was heavy-handed and unnecessary. Also, I think I dislike Ewan McGregor, but I'm not sure. Have to get back to you on that one.

The Hangover

Review: Pretty standard party/drinking/road trip type movie made a little more interesting by being told backwards linearly, i.e. 3 guys have to figure out what happened to their soon to be married friend who is lost in Vegas by piecing together clues from a night they can' really remember. That sounds pretty cheesy right? Well it is, but there are still enough funny parts to keep you interested through pretty much the whole thing. I'm not sure why this turned out to be such a massively popular comedy; maybe it was for lack of competition, because it really wasn't that funny. But like I said, there were some funny parts and enough Zach Galifianakis to make it worth checking out. I gotta say though, Andy Bernard was not funny, but actually annoying as hell throughout this entire movie. Also, the setup is unbelievably unimaginative: it's like Bachelor Party meets Road Trip!--this is actually my guess for how it was pitched to the studio.

Bonus Points: for Zach Galifianakis, who really carries the movie and is just generally hilarious anyway. Also, for the pictures at the end and particularly the one of Zach G. getting a beej from a really old looking whore.

Final Score: A middling 3.1 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. Ok, not great.

Up

Review: This was the widely praised pixar release of the year, because apparently those guys can do no wrong. Well, this fucker sure as shit wasn't WALL-E but it was still pretty decent. It's about a grumpy old man who always wanted to travel with his wife and finally gets a chance to do so after she dies by tying a bunch of balloons to his house and floating to South America. Along the way he is accompanied by a grating little boy scout, who perfectly captures the spirit of America with his obesity and desire for rewards without accomplishment. Anyway, it's a pretty good concept for a movie and I can't knock the pixar guys for lack of imagination, but there are some problems. For one, that "girl" at the beginning is clearly a little boy meaning either that the Ed Asner character is gay or his dead "wife" was somewhere in the T part of the LGBTQ scale. Either way, seems a bit risque for a kids movie. Also, the movie was really just audaciously ridiculous at times, none of which I can recall now but which made me shake my head in the theater. And then I realized that me and mamatro were the only people there who weren't either little kids or their parents and I had to shake my head at myself.

Bonus Points: for the talking dog collar thingies, which were actually very funny and a good way of dealing with the concept of talking animals while still letting the movie exist in a certain realm of believability (although, c'mon, he floated to South America in a house so talking animals wouldn't be a huge stretch).

Final Score: A solid if unspectacular 3.6 out of 4.7 on the dtro goodness scale. It was very creative and had some funny moments, but was hampered by ridiculousness (gotta keep the kids guessing) and one-note characters (b/c kids do not get the idea of complex personalities). Not bad at all for a childrens movie, but well short of Pixar's best in my opinion.

Ok, well I was gonna do one big post but I'm tired and this is taking too long. Tomorrow, in part 2, I review the Harry Potter movie, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Michael Moore's Capitalism, and The Hurt Locker. That post will feature my 2 favorite movies of the year (among those I saw in the theater at least). As a hint, they weren't Harry Potter, Michael Moore or District 9.

These people hate our way of life...

2009-11-16T21:48:00.003-05:00

...and so the best way to show them that we as democratic freedom loving Americans cannot be effected by them is to hold secret military tribunals and then execute them without due process.

So says Rudolph Q. Giuliani, self-proclaimed King of 9/11.

Rudy just go get the 09 patch sewn on to your Yankees 2627-Time World Champs! jacket and shut the fuck up.

Refueling on Sportswriter Hate

2009-11-15T23:31:00.007-05:00

Today I will be hating on Bill Simmons--ESPN's "Sports Guy," which is undoubtedly one of the most clever nicknames ever devised for a sportswriter. Here's the thing about Simmons: you know what you're going to get with him. Too many pop culture references aimed at people in their 30s that he seems to think are hilarious but which just get grating and gimmicky after a while. Sycophantic "mailbags" where his legions of mindless fans send him emails with the general outline of 'question about sports thinly veiled as annoying praise of Simmons and an attempt to get him to like me if only in a pseudo-internety kind of liking way, phrased exactly how he would phrase a paragraph in his own column.' Boston shit. Stuff just reminds him of the 86 Celtics all the time and he will randomly just throw away column space on the Patriots at times. Podcasts that are occasionally interesting and funny, unless he calls his buddy Jacko the Yankee fan--having listened to a couple of these Jacko podcasts I can safely say that my personal hell, if there is a hell to which I shall be relegated at the time of my dying, is listening to a Red Sox and a Yankee fan, neither of whom have any knowledge of baseball beyond shit that Dan Shaughnessy or Mike Lupica would write, debate who is more worried about their ridiculously wealthy well-run teams that are virtual locks for playoff spots year-in and year-out.

But the thing is--Simmons is not that bad. He's a decent writer and he genuinely has some interesting insights about sports sometimes (but not baseball, he should just ignore baseball at this point) and he's kinda funny. And so, despite the reservations about him that I have listed above, I do check out Simmons' page at ESPN on a fairly regular basis.

And then he goes and writes a steaming pile of shit like this. In case you don't want to click through, his column is called "Running on sports-hate empty"; hence the title of my post here. It's basically a post about how 3 of the athletes he hates the most--Kobe Bryant, A-Rod, and Peyton Manning have earned his begrudging respect and forced him to reconsider his "hate" for them. Fine, whatever. Pretty trite, but they can't all be doozies. The real problem here, though, is not the idea, but the content. E.G.:

"If you're not familiar with the term, "sports hate" is an underrated part of fandom. Everyone has guys they don't like, and more importantly, guys they enjoy not liking. The reasons are unique to us. There doesn't have to be anything rational about it. Sports hate can be triggered by one incident, one slight, one game gone wrong, anything."

If I'm not familiar with the term? Huh? As if this is a term in common parlance or is regularly used by a certain group of individuals here. I think it's pretty self-motherfucking-evident what you're talking about so don't treat me like I'm stupid and don't try to make "sports hate" seem like a "term" that you or someone else has coined because it's not. It's two words that mean what they say: hate related to the realm of sports. God, don't be such a douche Simmons.

Anyway, he then proceeds to talk about A-Rod finally being clutch in the postseason this year, because like many "stupid fans" he doesn't understand the concept of small sample sizes and randomness that influence any human endeavor, but in particular the sport of baseball. If you're not familiar with the term, "stupid fans" they are an unfortunate part of fandom. Everyone knows fans that are clearly less intelligent than them when it comes to thinking, writing, or talking about sports. You may even enjoy being smarter than them about sports, but it certainly is frustrating when they have a huge national platform. But yeah, "stupid fans:" I'm trademarking that shit. Just coined it here on the spot.

Our friend Billy then talks about how Peyton Manning's continued goodness at football proves that he's really good at football and Kobe Bryant won the basketballing championship of the national association or some such thing--not sure what sports league he's talking about there. And then he drops this gem:

"Read those previous three paragraphs again. (Actually, read them for me. I am covered in smoke because my flesh is on fire. I can't see my laptop. [ed. note: jokes, ha!]) Imagine you're me. You have a sports column. You're a passionate guy. You care a little too much about sports. You're all about the Boston teams. You love getting riled up about players who you feel are either selfish, overrated, attention hogs, bad teammates, transparent or whatever. You always believed that Manning would choke when it mattered, that A-Rod was a fraud, that Kobe's selfishness would trump his talents. These realities are no longer true.

Do I feel empty inside? Yeah, a little."

And bam I stopped reading. Literally haven't gotten any farther than that sentence, because it just shows when you give a Boston sports fan a national column. Boston sports fans have been blessed with a string of very successful teams over the last decade, and so to a certain extent the appeal that Simmons' writing probably originally had as the voice of the lovable loser, who approaches sports with some hope but a healthy amount of pessimism, is now irrelevant. There is no more claims to years of suffering to be offered up by the people in New England, and they probably miss that a bit. But what they miss, and what Simmons misses (if I may put on my armchair psychologist's cap for a minute) is not the suffering per se. It is the ability to Lord that suffering over everyone else. If you're arrogant and obnoxious (and Massholes can't really help that--it is stamped into the very fiber of their beings) when your teams are good then you're just a huge fucking dickhead. That is what Boston fans are at this point, and why they have surpassed fans of my own native city in national detestability. But if you are arrogant and obnoxious when your teams are bad, and are specifically arrogant about the badness of said teams, well then you get to feel superior to others while not being directly hate-able since your dickishness is tinged with a bit of sympathy for your suffering. The problem of course is that I really think Simmons and others of his brood actually think that their suffering is more deeply felt or more important than that of other people.

And so no, Bill Simmons, I will not imagine I'm you. I will not try to put myself in your shoes and feel your "sports suffering" (another gem I just came up with; refer to my glossary if you are not familiar with this term). I have my own thank you very much and it is not better or worse than yours; it just is. So don't lay some Bostony guilt trip on me about how you feel empty inside. I already knew you were empty inside, because you see, sir, you have no soul.

The Inner Circle of Baseball Hell

2009-10-28T19:21:00.005-04:00

That is where Mets fans are currently residing, myself among them. Clearly God hates the Mets and their fans and has shown this to them by injuring everybody on their roster, presenting them with a succession of Steve Phillips, Jim Duquette, and Omar Minaya, by giving us a Braves-Yankees WS in 1999, and lastly by allowing the abortion that is this year's World Series. This isn't a "Oh, woe is us!" bullshit-Red Sox thing: that happened because of their city's and organization's racism. The Mets are cursed for no good goddamn reason and it has all led to us having to make a choice about rooting for the Yankees or Phillies in the classic matchup of mystique vs. grit.

Now there are those who say we should root for the Yankees. After all, we all know Yankees fans and many of us have friends who root for the Yankees. However, I must explain to you that any Yankee fan friends that you know are decent people are the exception to the rule. Yankees fans are obnoxious loudmouths with a ridiculous sense of entitlement and such a dearth of knowledge about baseball that they immortalize people like Scott Brosius while vilifying Alex Rodriguez. We Mets fans, despite the best attempts of the Wilpons to eradicate it, must not forget our heritage. And that heritage means hating and rooting against the Yankees with every fiber of our being. Paul O'Neill, Chuck Knoblauch, Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, A-Rod etc.--don't you just fucking hate these guys. I know I do and deep down you do too. We must not root for the Yankees. The Yankees are not our crosstown brethren, they are our crosstown fucking rivals, and if I didn't root for the Yankees after 9/11 when New York "needed " and "deserved" a World Series, then I'm sure as shit not rooting for them now. The Yankees deserve nothing.

"Well, then dtro," you might say, "I guess that means we have to root for the Phillies." To which I say FUCK NO! While it is important not to lose sight of our hate past in the presence of the nouveau-douchiness of the Phillies, let's not pretend that this team and fanbase are not ridiculously detestable. Phillies fans are drunken mongoloids with no loyalty to anyone but the Eagles. They are violent and despicable people who seek out confrontation with other fanbases and others within their own fanbase, because frankly there's nothing better to do in a shithole like Philadelphia but get drunk and fight and then go complain about the best QB in your franchise's history. Philadelphians harbor a pitiful yet grating inferiority complex regarding the city of New York (and well they should) and lack the class, sense of history, integrity, or creativity to come up with their own rallying cries. The Phillies themselves have a roster of fuckfaced fucks. Jimmy Rollins is a douche, who likes to make big claims and shush Mets fans in the CitiField crowd while putting up a .296 OBP. He is probably the second most overrated player in the NL, trailing only Ryan Howard. Cole Hamels likes to call our boys choke artists? Choke on my dick. Chase Utley looks like he should start up a barbershop quartet with Wes Welker where they can sing about their hair parted perfectly down the middle (not to mention he leans into about 15 pitches a year). And Shane Victorino is a special kind of douche, my hatred of whom cannot be expressed in words. We may be in the inner circle of baseball hell right now, but rest assured there is a special place reserved in baseball hell for Shane Dicktorino after his fatal stabbing a couple of months from now. Just kidding...but I seriously wouldn't mind if he got stabbed and slowly bled to death.

That's right Mets fans, our best bet is to ignore this whole fucking thing. This is an opportunity to spend time with family and friends and not think about baseball until we're welcoming Matt Holliday with open arms and preparing for a 2010 Mets team that will exorcise all of our demons. And if you still feel bad about baseball right now, there's always this to cheer you up:

The New Manifesto*

2009-10-24T00:32:00.006-04:00

*By which I won't swear at all.

Based on some texts exchanged with Boyce on this fine drunken friday night, yours truly will try to post some more shit on this blog. Shit about how Steve Phillips' banging a busted-ass psychopath showed poorer judgment about fat people than the Mo Vaughn signing.

Shit about how Mother Teresa was a dirty fucking sham artist, who was more interested in death bed conversions than actually helping the poor, sick and needy (this according to G Wilko--although I tend to believe him,cynical as I am).

Boyce says hes in it for the lulz, but not me. I'm in it for the loot. Every time you log in to this page I make the potential for future income in the tens of dollars a year based on google ad revenue. I mean if a woman walks up to you who might be homeless, but a high-class respectable homeless, and offers to buy a cigarette off you for some nickels and pennies proffered in her outstretched AIDS-poisoned (assumption on my part) hand explaining that you "might could buy a soda" with it--and you seriously consider her offer: well then for fucking fuck's sake you need some loot.

And so I beg of all of you who read this: do not judge me (us) harshly for my (our) absence. Consider instead giving me some money so that I can get drunk and write some similar shit again. Clearly, the next time it might be about the clear lack of judgment on the part of a family that entrusts the majority of its money to Bernie Madoff and Omar Minaya, but I digress.

A man once said to me, "There are lots of people moving everywhere in this hustle and bustle we call life. But you," (and by this he meant ME), " you can see everything clearly, because you take the time to stop and look and consider everyone. You look at everything all around you, and for that you are blessed. Can I get a couple bucks for the train so I can get to..." blah, blah, blah: the fucking homeless bum. Dude smelled of piss-soaked potatoes and guilt-forced me into a MetroCard swipe at High St. (because when your in the Heights you feel like you can afford an extra fare or two, what with the deliciously wealthy smell of wood-burning fireplaces).

Fuck it I'm DAAAAAAARUNK!

Why the Mets Failed pt. 339

2009-09-23T15:32:00.003-04:00

Testing out this graph for Amazin Avenue FanShot:

Milledge and Manny for All-Star

2009-05-11T10:37:00.002-04:00

Because Major League Baseball and the All-Star game in particular under the leadership of Bud Selig has been retarded. Because noone can really pretend to be that mad at Manny for doing steroids or whatever, because everyone freaking did it for the last 15 years or so. Because Lastings Milledge is one of this blog's favorite players, and we know he is going to turn around his career in Washington and even if he doesn't he was still worth more than a 29-year old platoon outfielder and a douchebag fucking plumber masquerading as a major league catcher. Because the Nationals suck and having a AAA player represent them in the all-star game is a hilarious concept. Because Manny is still entertaining and funny to me. Because fuck the all-star game; it's pointlessly long and stupid and ended in a tie a few years ago and someone from every team has to make it and the managers try to get everyone in the game and the pitchers can't go for more than a couple innings and for some reason Bud Selig thought it would be a good idea to give world series home-field adavantage to the winning league even though the game is often decided by token all-stars from inferior teams that have no shot at the playoffs. Because MLB puts together their all-star ballots before the season and never changes them to accomodate changes in clubs' rosters. Because of all this I encourage everyone to vote for Manny Ramirez and Lastings Milledge to start as outfielders for the National League.

And also vote for Beltran as the 3rd guy, because he is awesome.

The bored at work, haven't posted for a while Mets suck post

2009-05-04T11:17:00.005-04:00

Some thoughts on a shitty Monday morning:

-Have you ever heard that old line about "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain"? You know, having two really good pitchers and hoping to muddle through the rest. I guess you could do one easily for the Mets, like: "Johan and Maine and pray for rain," except that I'm pretty sure John Maine sucks. It should have been "Santana and Lowe and pray for snow," except that Omar Minaya misjudged the market for Derek Lowe and then pretended he wanted Oliver Perez all along, saving a couple mil a year to have a ridiculously inferior pitcher kill our bullpen every fifth day (And now he may kill our bullpen from the inside, all part of Oliver Perez' latest plan: Operation Destroy the 2009 Mets). So now it's just "Santana and pray he goes 9 innings or pray that JJ Putz will revert to 2006-7 form after a year in which he was injured and that none of the other relievers blow this one and that Daniel Murphy catches flyballs hit at him and that the Mets not strand 15 runners and actually give Johan some run support and that it then rains for four consecutive days." And that's just not very catchy. It doesn't even rhyme.

-And speaking of rainouts, how have there not been more rainouts when I can only remember like 4 days out of the last 40 where it didn't rain in this godforsaken shithole of a city where the Metro closes at midnight on weekdays making it pointless for me to even think about going out on a Thursday night since I'm gonna waste an extra ten bucks taking a cab home?

-Sign the petition to paint CitiField's walls blue. Let's see, you cut down the seating from 55,000 to 42,000 to help create a false demand for tickets, allowed a corporate sponsor to name your stadium with money from the American taxpayers, completely ignored 47 years of Mets history and devoted all stylistic elements and historical flourishes of the new stadium to Jackie Robinson, a stadium that is now two huge apartment buildings and a team that left Brooklyn so long ago that all of their local fans are in Greenwood or those huge cemeteries out in Queens, painted the seats green and the walls black, and sold my dad a 15-game pack in a spot where he can't see a large portion of left field (which might be a good thing considering Sheffield's/Murphy's defensive play). You must be the Wilpons and you must truly have your finger on the pulse of the average Mets fan! At the very least paint the damn walls blue and give the place an identity that is somewhat Mets, rather than its current identity of "a place with very good food for a ballpark."

-Hey St. Francis Prep, I hope you all get swine flu. That's what you get for naming your sports teams the Terriers. Pussies!

-Mark Sanchez is gonna be fucking awesome! Except he's probably going to suck, because the Jets and Mets will continue to be disappointing for the next 50 years!

Tweet Tweet

2009-04-14T15:37:00.003-04:00

Inspired by this, I encourage you all to check out this.

Ah, the smell of the fresh cut crack of the bat

2009-04-06T09:22:00.006-04:00

Well, baseball is back just in time. My bracket sucked,and the seven months of NBA/NHL playoffs are about to start dominating sportscenter, so thank God baseball is here. Forget for a minute that ESPN realized that the Sunday Night Baseball* team was horrible and then thought to themselves "Hmmm, how can we make this more horrible?...I know, Steve Phillips!" Let's just focus on the good things, like Johan Santana at one o'clock today and Ricky Nolasco hopefully coming through for 3 different fantasy teams of mine.

*I think maybe I'll use a Pozterisk** here to mention that I no longer believe a word Joe Morgan says. He can be talking about anything and I just think "No, he totally made that up. He pulled that out of his ass. This guy's an idiot." Like he said that Chase Utley had trouble on breaking balls last year due to his nagging hip injury, and I thought "No. He made that up. Even if that's true, there's no way in hell Joe Morgan knows that." And Jon Miller's lengthy explanations of OPS in the first inning were just downright insulting. Thankyou so much, Jon, for explaining that, but there's really no need as I have been sentient for the last 10 years.

**Read some of this guy's posts to understand.

Anyway, let's get some predictions going for the baseball season. I was pretty terrible at this last year, but I've got a good feeling this time around:

AL
EAST: Red Sox. Fuck this team and their racist mongoloid fans.
CENTRAL: Indians. The Twins were a fluke, the White Sox are old, the Tigers have meh pitching, the Royals suck. Therefore, the mediocre Indians win a mediocre division.
WEST: A's. Fuck it why not. The Angels let Teixeira walk and thus have a shitty offense. Lackey, E. Santana, and Escobar are hurt at the moment. I'm going out on a limb and saying that the A's young pitching comes through and the Holliday-Giambi-Cust combo is enough.
WILD CARD: Rays. I will never pcik the Yankees, and though their rotation is awesome, I don't think their lineup is amazing, especially with Anabolex out. I think the Rays are all-around solid and that Matt Joyce will have a huge breakout year (just fucking with you LCT).

MVP: Grady Sizemore. Division winner, good player, Jeter black.
CY YOUNG: Jon Lester. If he's really good, the cancer* thing will push him over the top.
ROY: Matt Wieters seems to be some sort of combo of Johnny Bench and Jesus, so we'll go with him.

*Ok, so AIDS was the disease of the 90s and cancer has been the disease of the 2000s. What will be the disease of the next ten years? The leading contenders would probably be heavyweights like alzheimers and autism, but I can't help but root for an underdog like harlequin ichthyosis.

NL
EAST: The Mets of New York town. 4 awesome players + better bullpen - Willie Randolph + Daniel Murphy's unbridled intensity + Gary fucking Sheffield - Aaron Heilman - Scot Schoeneweis = who fucking knows, but I'm not picking the Philthies.
CENTRAL: Cubs. This is definitely the most obvious choice. Why do they even have this division any more?
WEST: Dodgers. Solid lineup, ok pitching. The D'Backs aren't bad and neither are the Giants somehow, but the Dodgers lineup is deep and Chad Billingsley will be awesome (I hope, for fantasy purposes).
WILD CARD: Phillies. Ugh. Braves have a good rotation, but the goddamn Phillies just will not go away.

MVP: Raul Ibanez. If it's not Pujols, it generally goes to the 4th or 5th best Phillie hitter.
CY YOUNG: Johan. The man, the legend.
ROY: Tommy Hanson. I think that's the Braves pitcher who will probably come up at some point. I don't really know. Who cares really? Ben Grieve once won one of these.

Ok, that is all.

My Top Ten All-Time Favorite People

2009-04-01T13:12:00.012-04:00

Names of the Year

2009-03-18T12:11:00.006-04:00

In honor of the Name of the Year Tournament, which is one of my favorite websites of all time, I have decided to come up with some names I think would be tournament worthy. Those in bold are real names.

Herschel Controversial
Schlomo Himmler
Monetary Christmas
Rich Poormansblood
Shaky Parkinson
Peter Rigglesdick
Valentino "Scooch" Pascucci (Why was/is Marlon Anderson a met when Scooch had to settle for Zephyrhood?)
Johan S. Burg
Pretoria A. Part-Hyde
Wenceslas Malady
Horatio Hammerfinger
Booker Woodfox (Creighton hoops)
Mervin McMervin
Remember Patience Whipple (I actually don't know if this is a real name or a fictional character, but I remember my sister having a book about a girl who comes over on the Mayflower with this name)
Francine Frogswallow
Percy Merciful
Dick Octagon
Santos de los Santos (NY-Penn Leauge player from a few years back)
Glasford Barnaby (Played baseball with him when I was 13 or 14)
Alabaster Black
Drake Rakish
Martin Luther ibn Faheed
Jatavius Hotnickels
Randall Cummings-Onurback
Oregon Riverford
Dingo Destitute
Foopa Cooper
Long Dong Gonzalez

You get the idea. I could really just think of names all day, but my ideas are running pretty thin.

David Wright, National Hero

2009-03-18T09:13:00.008-04:00

That is all.

Well, actually no it isn't. Watching the US beat Puerto Rico got me thinking just how stupid this World Baseball Classic is. I was excited at the prospect of it a few weeks ago, but now that's it under way I am fully convinced that this whole thing is pointless. Mercy Rules and pitch counts = my 10 year-old Babe Ruth little league series. Also, isn't the US playing Puerto Rico kind of like the US playing Florida. Puerto Rico is not actually a country. I understand that they are an island and speak a different predominant language, but if the Netherlands can field a team the majority of which is from Curacao and Aruba, then why aren't there Puerto Ricans on the US team?

Anyway, I thought I'd put together a roster of some states that might be able to rival Puerto Rico.

Florida
C-Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Mike Napoli
1B-Casey Kotchman
2B-Rickie Weeks
3B-Chipper Jones
SS-Jeff Keppinger (bit of a stretch...SS is pretty thin)
CF-Rick Ankiel
RF-Ryan Ludwick
LF-Elijah Dukes
DH-Gary Sheffield
Bench: Outfield-Luke Scott, Denard Spann (or Lastings or Matt Joyce or Marlon Byrd); Infield-Howie Kendrick; Utility guy-Ryan Freel
Starting Rotation: Zack Greinke, Jesse Litsch, Brett Myers, Bronson Arroyo, Tim Wakefield
Bullpen: Scot Shields, Chris Ray, Scott Proctor, Chris Perez, Bobby Seay, Boof Bonser (as the swingman), Andrew Miller (I think he could be a good releiver on this team.

Anyway, there may be some guys I missed, but that seems like a pretty competitive team. (Conspicuously absent: David Eckstein, Brian Schneider)

California
C-Gerald Laird, Jason Kendall
1B-Adrian Gonzalez
2B-Chase Utley
3B-Evan Longoria
SS-Jimmy Rollins
CF-Jim Edmonds (for defensive purposes I guess)
LF-Ryan Braun
RF-Carlos Quentin
DH-Milton Bradley (or Jason Giambi)
Bench: Derrek Lee, Dustin Pedroia, Jermaine Dye, Troy Tulowtizki (over Michael Young), Randy Winn (or Xavier Nady)
Starting Rotation: C.C. Sabathia, Danny Haren, Ted Lilly, Aaron Harang, Kyle Lohse (or Randy Wolf)
Bullpen: Heath Bell, Brian Fuentes, Bobby Jenks, Troy Percival, Chad Qualls

That's a damn good team, even taking out some big names that couldn't make it. (Conspicuously absent: Darryl Kile, Cory Lidle, Joe Kennedy, Eric Byrnes)

I was gonna do Texas and maybe another state, but I'm bored of this now.

The worst year in sports ends...

2009-03-04T10:54:00.005-05:00

...with a trip to the NIT.

Of course, by worst year in sports I mean worst year for dtro's teams in recent memory. And I'm also including the 08-09 Georgetown Hoyas among 2008 teams, because that's when their season started. However, if you want to count last year's Hoyas then a disappointing second round loss to a naked mole rat also fits in with the general pattern.

Let's review here: My favorite 4 sports in order are MLB baseball, NFL football, NCAA football, NCAA basketball. All other sports and leagues are pretty much pointless in my opinion.

1) The New York Mets of 2008 were not really collapsers, but a disappointing team nonetheless. And coming off 2007 and the 06 NLCS, it's not easy to be an optimistic Mets fan. Luckily, all Mets fans are sour-minded misanthropes, so the team fits our general outlook nicely.

2) The J-E-T-S were flying high for a minute before the reality that Brett Favre is old and sucks began to mainfest itself on the field. They were a true collapse and thoroughly infuriating.

3) Michigan Football suffered its worst season since the Rutherford Hayes administration or something. New coach Rich Rodriguez proved that recruiting and not necessarily coaching itself is his strong suit. The combined play of Nick Sheridan and Steven Threet was reminiscent of a back-alley abortion, and a loss to Toledo was probably very confusing and embarassing for LCT.

4) And here we are with the Georgetown Hoyas. The team started strong with a win over Memphis and only a loss to Tennessee prior to conference play. After they won at UConn to start the Big East schedule we were looking at a ranked team that was surprising people with how quickly they had recovered from the loss of Roy Hibbert and Jonathan Wallace. And then they started to suck. They remained fringe contenders for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament based on the fact that the Big East has been anointed the greatest college basketball conference in the history of forever and that their strength of schedule is #1 in all the land, but the bubble picture has finally been clarified by their embarassing overtime loss to St. John's last night.

Let's delve a little further into the Hoyas' season.

THE HIGHLIGHTS:

-Greg Monroe. An outstanding freshman center with decent post moves and good passing ability. He's already the best player on the team, but he's not good enough to be a freshman phenom and bolt for the NBA, meaning he should only get better next year. He should probably work on getting rebounds.

-Youth. The Hoyas only had one senior on the team, so at least they can blame part of their failure on being young. Dajuan Summers is a junior and has a claim against Monroe as the best player on the team (except that he disappears for no apparent reason during large stretches of games)so he'll be back next year as the senior leader guy or whatever. Chris Wright and Austin Freeman are sophomores and showed flashes of goodness. Henry Sims and Julian Vaughn are young guys and tall, which is nice I guess. I truly believe Georgetown has enough good players with a couple of decent recruits to be a Big East contender next year.

-Nikita Mescheriakov. A white guy in the rotation? Hell yes! The Bulgarian Bomber, as I have dubbed him, was pretty awkward looking at times but he could hit a few 3s and looked like he was trying hard. Also of note, he is from Belarus, but Bulgarian works better in my nickname for him.

THE LOWLIGHTS:

-Jesse Sapp. The Hoyas only senior was expected to provide leadership and hit some big shots, or at least hit a few shots. Unfortunately he completely forgot how to shoot and forced JT3 to use...

-...Jason Clark. He's a freshman, he's athletic, he plays hard and he's a fucking HUMAN TURNOVER MACHINE. He can't dribble, he can't pass and it looks like he just went through a growth spurt and hasn't yet adjusted to the size of his feet.

-Rebounding. Nobody, and I mean nobody, on this team can rebound. The Hoyas have been outrebounded by an average of 47-11 per game over the course of the season (note: figures are approximate/made up). You can play all the defense you want, but if everyone gets 2 or 3 shots per possession you are fucked. JT3 talked at the beginning of the year about running more, because the team was more athletic than it has been in years past, except he forgot to tell the players that in order to run you have to GET SOME MOTHERFUCKIN REBOUNDS.

-Bad losses. Getting blown out by Louisville and losing a thriller to Syracuse are acceptable. Getting swept by Cincinnati, losing to Seton Hall, and blowing a 16 point lead against a St. John's team led by a guy named Rob Thomas are not.

-Losing to Duke. I think we can all agree that it's tough to see the "Leader of Men" and Duke win any games. Fuck I hate that team.

-Luke Harangody. His torching of the Hoyas for 31 pts. and 11 boards was fucking miserable. Luke Harangody is exactly like Tyler Hansbrough...if Hansbrough were fatter, uglier, less athletic, had a retarded haircut, and bitched at the refs nonstop for 40 minutes.

I guess Georgetown technically has a chance if they win 5 games in 5 days to take the Big East Tournament crown. But that's not happening.

Look out Davidson, we're gonna get our revenge!

In the NIT!

EDIT: At least I don't root for this team.

Snow Day

2009-03-02T09:23:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I'm the idiot who actually came in to work today not remembering that our nation's capital shuts the hell down when there's a few inches of snow. Naturally, no one else from my office is here, but my boss's boss just came by and thanked me for coming in and offered to help throughout the day (translation---I can't leave at 9:30 like I was planning to if no one else showed up). DC shutting down when there's a bit of snow is one thing that bothers me. Here are some other things that have been bothering me lately:

-Metro escalators: you stand on the right side, you walk on the left side. It's really very easy, but people not knowing where to stand is just a minor quibble of mine, because they might be tourists and not know any better. If you are going to walk down the escalator, though, then FUCKING WALK WITH SOME PURPOSE. I don't have time to be caught in the left lane behind your moseying ass. Just walk fast or stand to the side you jerk.

-Save the Children: thank God it's snowing today, because it actually spared me from having to make pretend phone calls or quickly walk away and avert my eyes to avoid the Save the Children people who usually hang around outside my office building. Listen I hate poverty and want to help orphans as much as the next guy, but with, you know, moral support---like remote pity and such. I'm at work here and I've got rent to pay, and you've seen me enough by now to know that I'm not signing up for some monthly payment plan.

-Dubious charitable donations: There's the thing, Save the Children and Greenpeace (who are occasiaonally lurking in front of the Chipotle down the block from my apartment) don't want you to know. I know what you're up to. I know you don't just get people to donate money, but make them sign up for some sort of ongoing payment thing. Don't try to guilt me into something when you're pulling the same tricks magazines do when they have "free" subscriptions around Christmas. The jig is up you charitable bastards.

-People bumming cigarettes and then needing a light too: do you smoke or don't you? I only gave you that cigarette under the assumption that you were an unfortunate smoker caught without any more smokes.

-People asking me for directions: what is it? Do I just always look like a local or like I know where I'm going? I think I must be the most approachable looking guy in New York or Washington, DC, because wherever I am I get stopped on the steet and asked for directions once a week. And I really don't know where I'm going in DC so I just make stuff up half the time.

-No sports. G'Town basketball is rather disappointing this year as they fight for an undeserved at-large bid on the strength of the Big East's ability to claim that it is the greatest sports conference of all-time. The NBA and NHL are a joke. Why can't Spring Training last for only a week.

-People looking at me funny just cause I'm reading a book called Cannabis: A History on the train. I'm not a pothead and fuck all you old ladies for even thinking that.

The Academy would like to honor Jerry Lewis, gay people, and Indians (from India)

2009-02-23T09:43:00.006-05:00

The 81st Annual Academy Awards have come and gone and they were long and they were boring. And yet I watched them for some reason. Here are my two cents on what has been termed the Super Bowl for women. Although, I think the Oscars are more like Olympic Figure Skating if it was held every year.

-I'm glad Benjamin Button was recognized in the way it was, i.e. it got make-up and visual effects type awards, because those elements of the movie were actually very good. It was the other stuff in the movie, like the acting and story, that sucked.

-Why did they keep moving the cameras around during the "people who died this year" montage. Once we see that it's Queen Latifah singing then just show the video, because we know it's her and can hear her voice. And when you show the video just show it; this is a memorial tribute not fucking Cloverfield.

-Amy Adams should win every award ever, because I am in love with her.

-Slumdog Millionaire was a good movie. I think there has been a sort of backlash against it from a lot of people because it was SO critically praised that people went into the theater expecting to have a life-altering experience. It was a good, slightly hackneyed but visually awesome movie. I'm glad it won, because it was the best of the 3 best picture nominees I saw.

-Better movies than the best picture nominees in my opinion: The Dark Knight and In Bruges. I was rooting for In Bruges to win the screenplay Oscar, but alas it was the year of the gays and Indians.

-Best speech: the Japanese guy who kept saying "sank you" over and over and closed with "domo arigato Mr. Roboto." That guy is cool.

-Was Jerry Lewis making funny faces or is his body deteriorating rapidly leaving him with limited muscle control?

-I liked when the guy who did the music for Slumdog won his second straight award for one of the songs from the movie and said something like, "All my life I've had a choice between love and hate. I chose love and look where I am." Dude, what the FUCK are you talking about? Are you saying you're better than me? If I just choose love will I win an Oscar? Was that even your voice in the musical number? I don't think it was.

-I can't tell if Hugh Jackman was any good. I mean, it's not like I wanted Jon Stewart up there telling jokes and talking about Obama the whole time, but Hugh Jackman mincing around like a Producers audition was just weird.

-Good god Beyonce's got some thighs on her. She could cut a horse in half with those thunderstix.

-Sean Penn thanked a bunch of people and took the time to tell the Prop 8 voters that they were evil and would never be able to look their grandkids in the eye, but forgot to thank Jenny or the gay screenwriter who they kept showing in the crowd as he was tearing up. Hey remember when Sean Penn was cool as Spicoli and would say stuff like, "Whoa, those guys are fags!" That was a long time ago.

-KK Hollidae seems to think that Anne Hathaway is beautiful, like really marvelously good looking. Here's the thing about Anne Hathaway, who was about the 30th hottest actress there. Her appeal to men is that she's attainably hot, i.e. she's pretty but you might have a chance with her because she's not anything really special. Girls love these types of famous women, because they don't make them feel self-conscious or inadequate and then girls start claiming that they're amazingly beautiful when really Anne Hathaway is only pretty enough and I might have a shot at her if she was hammered and I was rich.

-Sofia Loren haunts my dreams.

Adjudicating the Mets' Offseason

2009-02-19T12:45:00.016-05:00

The boss is out of the office today and there's not much going on around the internet to entertain me, so I might as well write a blog post. As you may know, I work for a huge government-run entity in the personnel security office and a large part of my job consists of fingerprinting employees, volunteers, contractors, etc. who work for this organization. Well when we receive the results of those fingerprint checks most people have no records and we simply close their case and let the coordinators know that they're ok to bring on board--these people are CLOSED FAVORABLY. Sometimes the fingerprint checks reveal a criminal/arrest record that forces us to review their files (some of the more interesting marks on people's records this week: forcible sodomy and uttering)--when we can't in good conscience let these people work for our organization they are deemed UNACCEPTABLE. Sometimes we fingerprint old and/or sweaty people and their prints do not come out clearly, meaning that a check is done based on their name, SSN, date/place of birth, etc. These "name checks" are not always accurate and thus we may have to re-print somebody whose prints were garbage--they were considered UNCLASSIFIABLE.

We can ignore 3B, SS, CF, 1B and Johan for the time being (they were simply ID renewals that had a previously acceptable investigation). Here were the 2008 Mets' problem areas, as determined by me: Bullpen, 2nd Base, Left Field, Rotation (behind Johan), Catcher. And remember, we can adjudicate Mr. Minaya's moves in three ways: closed favorably, unacceptable, or unclassifiable.

BULLPEN

Where we stood: The 2008 Mets bullpen was retardedly atrocious. Wagner got hurt in August, leaving a cast of LOOGs and ROOGs trying to preserve precious leads. They all failed pretty miserably. Heilman was all-around shitty, Dirty Duaner got tired as the year wore on, Schoeneweis and Feliciano couldn't retire righties to save their lives, ditto Joe Smith but with lefties,Luis Ayala was a National castoff who was thoroughly mediocre...you get the idea.

What we did: Clearly the bullpen was the Mets' biggest flaw in 2008 and Omar got right down to business fixing it. He signed K-Rod for 3 yrs./ $37 mil, which ain't half bad considering he dit it before the FA market bottomed out and early prediction had K-Rod looking for 5/70 or thereabouts. Omar also unloaded Heilman and Joe Smith, along with Mike carp and some lower-level prospects (and, alas, the lovable Endy Chavez) in exchange for JJ Putz and Sean Green (and Jeremy Reed, who ain't no damn Endy, lemmetellya). The Mets also threw out some minor league deals to no-names and picked up a guy named Rocky Cherry in the Rule 5 draft.

Adjudication: We picked up the best free agent closer and traded for an arguably better closer to set him up. Green is essentially a Joe Smith replacement and should be adequate. I expect a healthier and better year out of Dirty Duaner. If Wagner comes back in August the Mets could have the best bullpen in recent memory, and even without Billy that's still a hell of a one-two punch. CLOSED FAVORABLY.

SECOND BASE

Where we stood: 2nd base was a miasma of suck for the Mets last year. Castillo could barely hit his weight and couldn't move more than a few steps in either direction to field(great signing Omar!), Damion "GIDP" Easley actually tangibly looked like replacement level personified, and Argenis Reyes was an all-field no-hit bleach blonde dumbfuck.

What we did: Easley's gone, and in his place is...Alex Cora! Hooray, a 33-year old life-long bench player with a .245/.313/.348 in 2800 at bats. Alex Cora, come on down and collect your 2 million dollars.

Adjudication: Looks like Omar's crossing his fingers and hoping for Castillo to justify that contract. And $2 million isn't a ton, but I really think Omar could have allocated that money elsewhere. It's not like I wanted to go throw a bunch of money at Orlando Hudson (who might wind up being really cheap considering he's still unsigned as of this writing), but as long as Luis Castillo is hobbling around with an orange NY on his hat there is only one adjudication possible. UNACCEPTABLE.

LEFT FIELD

Where we stood: Left field was a revolving door of players of whom nothing was expected, because what the Mets and Mr. Minaya expected was for Moises Alou to play more than a couple of games. Fernando Tatis and the Superman music shocked the shit out of every one by playing quite well for several months before separating his shoulder in mid-September. Daniel Murphy burst on the scene in a big way, hitting very well in 131 at-bats during August and September. Nick Evans looked rather benchy, but hit lefties well in his limited playing time. Angel Pagan (definitely a member of the Brooklyn Cyclones Hall of Fame) had a hot start before falling over a railing at Dodger Stadium in May and ending his season. The Mets actually got OK production out of LF last year despite Omar's efforts, but none of these guys really seems like a big league leftfielder.

What we did: Closed our eyes and pretended Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn, and Pat Burrell didn't exist. Signed a bunch of filler (Cory Sullivan, Rob Mackowiak, Bobby Kielty, etc.) to compete with Jeremy Reed for a 5th outfielder spot and round out the Buffalo roster.

Adjudication: It seems Omar is content with a Tatis-Murphy platoon in left. It seems pretty risky to expect Tatis to replicate last year's magic or Murphy to live up to his great start, and it's disappointing that that's what we have to hope for when Dunn, Burrell, and even Bobby Abreu (not a LF, but still) were had for very little money. I guess the budget is set and we can thank Bernie Madoff for that. Here's hopin that Murphy is the next John Olerud. UNCLASSIFIABLE.

ROTATION

Where we stood: Johan is a beast. Big Mike Pelfrey was great from some time in June onwards, but he threw a lot more innings than ever before and still can't strike people out. Let's hope he picks up those strikeout rates and doesn't fall victim to serious fatigue or arm issues after last year's workload. John Maine was pretty lousy and then hurt, but he still can be a solid 3 when healthy. Ollie was up and down as usual, with a stretch at the beginning of the year where he was brutal, a stretch in the middle where he convinced us all he'd finnally turned it around, and a stretch at the end where he was pretty blah; and he walked 1700 men. Pedro, as much as I love the guy, was brutally, indescribably awful.

What we did: We watched the Braves over pay for solid consistency in the form of Derek Lowe. After a long and arduously boring negotiation we re-signed Ollie for 3 yrs./$36 mil, which seems ok until you read smart people explain how much he's actually worth. We signed Tim Redding to a major-league $2.25 mil contract, which seemed fine at the time, but then the market went downhill and I realized we could have had 7 Tim Reddings or maybe even someone better for that. We signed Freddy Garcia to a minor league deal with a bunch of incentives. And for some goddamn reason we just signed Livan Hernandez and invited him to St. Lucie.

Adjudication: I can't help but feel that Omar paid a bunch of money to tread water. I love Ollie and I hate that Derek Lowe contract, but he's a proven commodity and a better bet to be good despite his age. I do like the fact that the Mets actually have some rotational depth this year, with Jon Niese, Redding, and Garcia all in the running for that 5th spot. I expect Garcia to make the rotation and Redding to serve as the long man/injury insurance to start the year. All in all, meh. UNCLASSIFIABLE.

CATCHER

Where we stood: With the trading away of Schoeneweis and my soon to come assassination of Luis Castillo, Brian Schneider is my least favorite Met. Whether it's sour grapes from the Milledge trade, the fact that he hit's like a little bitch, or the fact that he CAN"T BLOCK A BALL IN THE FUCKING DIRT, I can't stand the guy. He clearly is not a good catcher. Ramon Castro can hit some bombs, but he's hurt all the damn time and was again last year. Robinson Cancel looks like a retired-and-now-gotten-fat Ninja Turtle, but that doesn't mean he should be on an MLB roster.

What we did: Not a damn thing, although there weren't really any options. If they could have gotten Varitek for cheap and then fed him to sharks on live TV that would've been OK.

Adjudication: Well there weren't really any great options out there. We didn't really have the prospects to get one of the Rangers' catchers or Montero from Arizona. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that Omar didn't sign PudgeRod. Lest we forget though, Omar traded Lastings Milledge for Schneider and also let Washington scoop up Jesus Flores in the Rule 5 draft two years ago. Thank God we were able to hold on to Julio Franco for half of 2007, where would we have been without him. UNACCEPTABLE.

What have we learned: Nothing really. If Ryan Church and Delgado play like their good halves of 2008 this coming year we got a shot. Otherwise, we're looking at last year's team with a bullpen. At least I'm not LCT, though, because the Tigers are gonna suck.

25 Random Baseball Things about me

2009-02-18T09:45:00.018-05:00

So I read this post from Shysterball this morning and J9 recently tagged me in one of those facebook random things about you notes, so I thought it might be a good idea to try this. If you don't feel like clicking on the link, the idea is to take that facebook 25 random things bit and apply it to your experiences/thoughts about baseball. Since I haven't written about baseball here in a while (mostly due to the Mets' lackluster offseason) this will be a nice change of pace:

1. Obviously, I am a big Mets fan, although I can't exactly pinpoint when this became the case. I don't think it was a conscious decision, just the result of my dad taking me to so many Mets games over the years because the tickets were cheaper and Shea was easier to get to. I don't like to think about it, but if I had grown up in the Bonx or Manhattan instead of Brooklyn I might have been a Yankees fan. Wait, no. I have too much integrity for that.

2. Actually, there might be another reason I became a Mets fan besides the obvious geographical convenience. My dad grew up in Indiana as a Tigers fan (and somewhat Indians fan--I guess he liked whoever Rocky Colavito was playing for)during the 1950s. Therefore, like most God-fearing human beings he hated the Yankees and had to follow the Mets when he and my mother moved to New York in the early 70s (he came to NY in 1973, just in time to see the Ya Gotta Believe! Mets make a run to the World Series).

3. During a family trip to see one of my dad's friends who lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we went to Dyersville--home of the Field of Dreams. I was about 8 or 9 I think and there was supposed to be an old-timers game. Well, the game was rained out but it was still a memorable day. As we were walking towards the corn behind the outfield grass, a guy with a microphone and a camera walked up and started interviewing me and my sister about baseball. If I recall correctly I think I told him I liked fielding better than hitting and he told us that we were going to be on some TV station in Wisconsin (I think). Later that day there was an autograph session in some big barn thing by the field and I met Mudcat Grant. I remember being really shy and intimidated and that he asked me if I was a "Bubba." I couldn't really understand his accent and when my dad told me what he asked me I had no idea what a "Bubba" was. I still have no idea.

4. Anyone who knows me well knows that my favorite player of all-time is Cal Ripken Jr. Well, because of my love for Cal I was a big Orioles fan as a kid, which meant that Jeffrey Maier hit me harder than your average Yankee ill-wisher. I really hate that kid.

5. From the more about Cal Ripken files:

The first time I saw Cal Ripken was in the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore meaning it must have been 1991 when I was four years old. I remember being frightened because the upper deck was insanely steep, and that I asked my dad who "that tall man" was. I wasn't much interested in the game, only in the guy who, even from afar, seemed to tower over everyone on the infield. That man was of course Cal Ripken Jr.

In grade school, our librarian (and later gym teacher when P.S. 261 phased out the library in favor of more gym--who needs books when we can just play dodgeball!) Mr. Gelband would have us do a report every year on a famous/historical figure. I remember one year I was Wild Bill Hickok. The idea was to read a book about that person and then dress up as them a present a report to the class as that person. Most people did someone like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Abe Lincoln, etc. Well one year, I think 4th grade probably, I read Cal Ripken's autobiography (the one with a bunch of photographs, I don't remember what it was called), and put on an Orioles t-shirt and hat to give my report. I had a buzz cut back then and really light blonde hair, so I probably pulled off the balding thing pretty well.

6. As a youngster, most of our family road trips revolved around going to see baseball games and I have therefore been to more big league stadiums and minor league games than just about anyone my age I know. Like when Muggs told me she was from Frederick, I was like "Oh, home of the Frederick Keys" and I have actually been there. Or when she talked about an uncle in Hagerstown, I can relate that to the fact that I have sat on a hill behind left field at a Hagerstown Suns game. Anyway, here are the MLB stadiums where I've seen a game: Shea, Yankee Stadium, The Vet, Citizens Bank Park, Memorial Stadium (Baltimore), Camden Yards(I went to the first ever game-an exhibition against the Mets), RFK, Nationals Stadium, Tropicana Field, Three Rivers, PNC Park, Wrigley, Cellular One/New Comiskey (whatever it's called), Miller Park, Municipal Stadium (Cleveland), Jacobs Field, Tiger Stadium, Comerica. Pretty good for 22 and never really travelled much west of the Mississippi.

7. When I was 7, we finally made the jump up from teeball to live pitching in the 78th Precinct league. To ease the change the team's coach would pitch to the players for half the year with players getting to pitch in the second half of the season. I was a decent hitter but without much pop and even though our coach's son was my size or smaller (and I was a small kid) he was smacking extra base hits like crazy off his dad for the first half of the year. Well, when kids started pitching and his daddy wasn't grooving him slowballs at his belt he couldn't hit shit and I had the highest average on the team against "live" pitching.

8. I was a kind of little league journeyman, hopping from team to team every couple of years. From the ages of 5-15 I played for 78th Precinct, the Bonnies, Grace of Gravesend, Amity, Bergen Beach, and then back to the Bonnies (never did go over to St. Columba...or the Latin Souls for that matter). This of course was due to the fact that my dad inevitably had some sort of falling out or disagreement with whoever I was playing for. It was generally to get me somewhere where I had a chance to play more (although at least one of them was due to a personal injustice my dad felt we had suffered) and it was pretty frustrating at the time. Now it kinda cracks me up.

9. The first and only homerun I remember hitting was at Marine Park when I was 8 and playing for the Bonnies against Bergen Beach (which was NOT a good team). I was a good shortstop and hitting in the 8-hole all year (to give you an idea of my hitting ability) and I had just recently bought a new TPX bat that was black with red and gold lettering. I was a singles hitter mostly and everyone knew it (since we played the same 4 or 5 teams several times), so the outfield was playing pretty shallow. Well, I finally connected on a high fastball and sent it over the centerfielder's head and it kept rolling and rolling. Man, I loved that bat.

10. I have had some pretty bad injuries playing baseball. When I was 8 or 9 (Bonnies) I got a concussion in practice. We were practicing throwing down to second on steals and I was covering second when one of my teammates came barrelling in without sliding. He was wearing a helmet, I was not and helmet-to-head collisions usually wind up bad for your head. Later when I was 9 I fractured a growth plate in my right shoulder from overthrowing. When you pitch the day after a practice that featured steady long-tossing you better be older than 9. I missed the rest of that season and my fastball was never the same again.

My worst, or at least most immediately awful-looking, injury from baseball was when I was 11. Once again it was at practice, and we were practicing pickoff throws to second. I was a second baseman on that team and when I went to cover second for the throw the sun was directly in my eyes and I couldn't see the ball coming. Unfortunately, the pitcher making the throw was Tommy Costa, the hardest throwing 11 year old I've ever seen, and the ball hit me directly in the face and broke my nose. I didn't realize what happened until I looked down and saw the glove I had been holding to my face was filled with blood. I had a shiner on both eyes for weeks.

11. The worst seats I have ever had at a game were at old Tigers Stadium. My great aunt, Auntie Nan, took me and my sister to a day game and got cheap seats behind the left field wall. The view directly in front of me was a post supporting the upper level. I appreciate the effort though, Auntie Nan.

12. The best team I ever played for was the 10-year old Our Lady of Grace (Gravesend) team. I played right field, because the middle infield positions were already held by players who had been with Grace for a few years (remember, I was a journeyman) and hit second. I hit .480 that year (and probably with a Bonds-ian OBP) and we won our league and the Babe Ruth League qualifying tournament with a remarkable run after losing our first game in a double-elimination tournament. We went to a Babe Ruth League World Series in Frederick, MD (home of the Keys!) facing off against teams from all over the mid-Atlantic and northeast. Standing on a mound of dirt watiting for our coach's speech after the second game we lost (to a team from Buffalo, I think), i.e. the one that eliminated us from the series, is the only time I remember crying after a baseball game.

13. I attended Doc Gooden's no-hitter. I went with my dad and a former coach and teammate. I went to see Griffey and I got to see a former Met great throw a no-hitter...for the Yankees. Still waiting on that Mets no-hitter--Ollie, Johan, somebody?

14. The first time I ever got drunk was in the spring of my freshman year in high school. The next day was the first time I ever played baseball hungover or even had a hangover for that matter. I hit four doubles over the course of a double-header. So, yeah, I understand how David Wells threw a perfect game hungover.

15. I was at Shea in 1999 when Robin Ventura hit a grand slam in both games of a double-header, the only time it's been done in MLB history. The dark secret, of course, is that he hit the first one in the first inning of game one and we were just pulling into the parking lot so I only heard it on the radio. I usually just tell people I was there for both.

16. That '99 Mets team is my favorite team ever. My favorite Met ever is Edgardo Alfonzo, followed by Jose Reyes (clearly I have a soft spot for middle infielders). Maybe my favorite baseball memory is sitting in my parents bed with my mom and dad watching Ventura's "grand single" soar through the raindrops at Shea.

17. I was at the Todd Pratt game. My dad's friend Richie got 4 tickets and my dad drove me and my sister out to the game. We went in while he stayed in the parking lot listening to it on the radio. We sat with Richie and his girlfriend Peg in the last row of the Loge in fair territory by the left-field foul pole. We couldn't see pop-ups and we had to strain our necks down to either side for most of the game. But goddamn if we didn't have a great view of that ball going off Steve Finley's glove. And we went fuckin nuts.

18. My dad taught me and my sister to keep score when we were very young, and we both still do it pretty frequently when we're at a game. However, I've learned that the Trott method of scoring differs slightly from the more popular method: on fly outs rather than putting F8 or F7, etc. we put the number with a circle around it (a circled number with a line under it is a line out).

19. When I was 12 I learned how to throw a curveball, and let me tell you, I threw a wicked fucking curveball. I never blew my fastball past people at that point (see #10), but I kept hitters off balance with a mix of pitches. This was the age when kids were just starting to throw curves and nobody knew how to hit them, so I was a pretty effective pitcher. As I got older and kids learned to adjust to the curve, though, that lack of great velocity did me in.

20. I was at the Jeter-Mr. November game and I was probably the only one in the stdaium rooting for the Diamondbacks. 9/11 or no, I was sticking to my principles. Later in that series I broke my World History textbook in half when I threw it on the floor after Soriano hit that go-ahead homer in game 7. That game 4 and that series were outstanding.

21. My dad got two season tickets down the third base line for the inaugural season of the Brooklyn Cyclones. That team, that season, that setting was totally electric that year. I caught a couple of t-shirts thrown into the crowd over the course of the season, and I thought Party Marty was awesome. Only later did I find out that he was a jerk (except that I found that out from my friend Timmy, who, in Party Marty's defense, had just run out onto the field uninvivted for the singing of Happy Birthday even though it wan't his birthday and he was a good 6 years older than everyone else out there).

22. I am pretty sabermetrically-oriented as a baseball fan, but have only become that way over the last few years. I remember my dad telling me a number of years ago that the most important baseball stat, in his opinion, was RBIs and it made total sense to me at the time. Of course, as my knowledge of the game has progressed I now find myself disagreeing with my dad about baseball more and more frequently. I bought him Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends and I don't think he got the point. We do seem to agree on our generally positive regard for Tim Marchman and on the fact that Omar Minaya is not very good at his job.

23. I have gone to one baseball game by myself: this one. It was during the summer of 2006 when I was temping at the Pfizer gym and I really wanted to go to a game, but couldn't get anyone to go with me. I went anyway and got a $5 box down the right field line in the upper deck, but moved down closer to the infield in the first row of the mezzanine. Before the game started an usher came to check the tickets of a group of guys a section over from me who had done the same thing and made them leave, but he left me alone because I was by myself. Reyes hit for the cycle, Jose Valentin hit a homer to put the Mets ahead in the 7th (he hit lefty against a lefty which was pretty cool), and then Billy Wagner blew what had been an awesome game in the 9th. I think I might try going to a game by myself again some time soon.

24. I took batting lessons for several years from a man named Mel Zitter out at the batting cages in Funstation USA on Victory Blvd. in Staten Island. Mel had been one of Manny Ramirez' coaches when Manny was a kid in Washington Heights and played for Youth Service (a team I played against most of my childhood). Mel never missed an opportunity to remind you that he had coached Manny and he always sort of bothered me. The longish drive combined with Mel's annoyingness and the fact that my hitting wasn't really improving made me dread those lessons. One of my happiest afternoons is when my dad's vanagon ran out of gas getting off the Staten Island Expressway and we missed the lesson.

Addendum: It was while taking a batting lesson from Mel that a film crew from Channel 7 Eyewitness News taped me taking swings in the cage (while still wearing my Catholic scool khakis) and played it during a report about the dangers of aluminum bats in high school baseball. My parents have a tape of that somewhere.

25. I quit playing baseball after the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I had played JV the year before, but I didn't make the varsity my junior year and I was really disheartened. I mean REALLY disheartened. I decided on the day I didn't see myself on the roster posted outside Coach Duffel's office that I was done playing baseball. It took me a few months to tell my dad, and he was so mad we didn't speak for several weeks. Baseball had consumed my life, but I had been so focused on playing it that I didn't really like it that much at that point. It felt like it had become a burden and more my father's hobby than my own. I sometimes regret quitting, not knowing if I did so on my own terms. But now I think I like baseball more. It's something to enjoy in my spare time, something I still get wrapped up in but can also ignore or follow as I please. It's still the thing that best connects me and my father. And anyway I wasn't really THAT good.

Bonus Fact: Boyce and I spent the better part of an hour smoking cigarettes with Cliff Floyd's little brother Julius during a game at PNC Park a couple years ago. Boyce won a trip to Pittsburgh from a text trivia thing at Shea, and I think I freaked Julius out when I asked if his family called his brother Cornelius.

Movie Review: Taken

2009-02-17T19:08:00.004-05:00

Well, Etro was in town this weekend, which means we watched a bunch of movies. When you grow up with someone and live with them for 17+ years it's sometimes just better to watch a movie than to try to come up with new things to talk about. Aside from watching about 20 or so movies on demand we actually got off our asses and went to the theater to see Taken. Here are my impressions of that movie:

Taken was the story of Liam Neeson trying to get back his stupid-ass daughter after she got kidnapped in Paris. Why was she in Paris? Well it was her first stop in a summer trip around Europe to follow a U2 tour. Fucking serves her right. Just goes to show what I've always said: Bono is behind the majority of sex trafficking in the world. Also, if you want to go sing Vertigo at the top of your lungs with a bunch of 36 year old mongoloids you deserve to be pumped with heroin and sold to Albanian dockworkers.

So, anyway, Liam Neeson is a former CIA guy or something and he basically turns into Jason Bourne, going around Paris beating the shit out of people. It is a very simple film that delivers exactly what you expect; I expected awesome and I got it.

The good stuff:

-Liam Neeson shooting a former French colleague's wife in the arm to get information out of him. "It's only a flesh wound!"

-Liam Neeson lying under a dead body to hide before shooting another guy. "I don't know if you remember me. We talked on the phone two days ago. I told you I would find you."

-Liam Neeson forcing a little French douchebag to get hit by a truck.

-Liam Neeson taking out an entire boat full of Arabian guards using his fists, broken bottles and occasionally firearms.

-You get the idea.

The bad stuff:

-I find it hard to believe that it's really more cost efficient for the Paris Albanian mob to kidnap tourists than to transport girls from Albania to be whores. I get that they save on transportation cost, but kidnapping citizens from actual countries would bring on a lot of political pressure from other nations to stop this nonsense, right? I gotta assume that the extra attention from law enforcement would outweigh the costs of trucks from Albania.

-The daughter is annoying as shit. She's not hot, she acts and dresses like a 12 year old (she's supposed to be 17), she likes U2, she likes horses (WTF?! she's supposed to be 17!), she wants to be a singer (not happening with that body, sweetheart), ans she whines like a little bitch when Liam Neeson hesitates to let her go to Europe on her own. Hey guess what, maybe you should have listened to your dad, because you are now a smackwhore.

-Lack of hot female character. Sure you had Famke Janssen as the mother, but that was only a bit part. And the daughter's friend was hot, but she was a minor character too.

-That singer at the beginning could have shown a little more gratitude towards Liam Neeson for saving her life. Yaknowhati'msaying?

All in all, the good outweighs the bad in taken. It was a laugh-a-minute thrill ride or something. Ignore the parts that don't really make sense and just try to enjoy Liam Neeson shooting that chick in the arm, God that was great. I give this a 3.9 out of 4.7 on the dtro scale of goodness. Yeah, I changed the scale, so what? It's my scale I can do with it as I please. You don't like it you can go read something else you ungrateful prick. Wait! Wait, where are you going? Come back, you're my only reader! I was kidding. Please come back. Please. And tell your friends.

Anabolex Roidriguez

2009-02-09T21:07:00.006-05:00

Hey guys, I don't know if you've heard the news, but...wait are you sitting down? Wait for it...

ARod did steroids!

That's right. A famous baseball player did steroids. This fresh faced young Mariner you see above will one day take a bunch of steroids and hit a bunch of homeruns and such. Here are some quick thoughts about all this:

1)That sucks. It would have been nice for ARod to break Bonds' homerun record and be clean. At least now we'll have a cheater who was slightly less of an asshole than Barry Lamar.

2) Who cares? I really don't need to read a bunch of shithead baseball writers fume about legacies and the history and integrity of baseball. If I hear one more guy bitch and moan about how betrayed they feel by Mark and Sammy, and Bonds and ARod so fucking help me God. Look, I love baseball, and it's pretty clear that a lot of players were cheating for at least a decade (AKA my entire childhood).That sucks and it really bothered me. But as writers go on and on about steroids, and George Mitchell leads an "investigation," and the government wastes everyone's fucking time and money going afer Bonds and Clemens I just cannot care any more. So fuck it.

3)How awesome would it be if Jeter was one of the other 104 players on the list. God that would be great. I think a number of baseball hacks' heads would explode. Or Eckstein, that would crack me up.

4)God I hope they never catch Piazza.

5)Clearly everyone who has ever been on the Rangers did steroids. Pudge, Palmeiro, ARod, Juan Gon, Canseco, Kevin Elster, Rusty Greer, etc. If anyone has ever played for the Rangers they have done steroids. It's science.

6)It really makes no damn sense to try and keep some guys out of the Hall of Fame just because they were caught. McGwire never got caught. Barry Bonds never actually failed a test as far as I know. It's pretty obvious that fucking everyone was doing steroids and trying to guess who was clean is retarded. Did anyone really suspect ARod before this? No, so just because we don't really suspect Griffey or Frank Thomas or Piazza or Maddux or Pedro or Manny doesn't mean they are more deserving of the Hall of Fame than ARod, Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, or Clemens. Nobody knows, so just compare them to their peers not to what you suspect they might have been or might have done.

7)Wow, the MLB players union really sucks. Way to protect those anonymous samples guys. This seems like a huge fuck up on their part. Still, they're miles better than the NFL players union, which mandates that you play with concussions and gives you a pat on the back after you retire and $40-50 for every post-career stroke (depending on the severity of your resuslting paralysis).

8)Fuck the Yankees!

If you want to read something insightful and pretty much dead on about this whole mess check out this post from ShysterBall.

Thoughts on StealerBowl XLIII

2009-02-03T12:46:00.002-05:00

That is an incomplete pass. I'm pretty sure the refs called it a fumble figuring that if they were wrong at least it was a reviewable play. And then they didn't review it, and the Steelers snapped the ball and one of the most exciting quarters in Super Bowl history was quickly and confusedly ended with the Stealers on top. Goodell sent his henchmen up to the booth to strong-arm Al Michaels into making up something about the officials reviewing it in the booth to cover up the obvious fuck up.

Would the Cardinals have scored on a Hail Mary? No, probably not, but they'd have a better shot than pretty much any team in the league with Fitzgerald and the added field position from James Harrison taking off his helmet. Basically, the NFL decided that instead of giving millions of people an exciting ending to a potentially epic Super Bowl, they would just give the Steelers another ring and leave us all muttering and annoyed.

Good work NFL!

And how come the last 2 years the Super Bowl has sucked until the 4th quarter? Yes, they both wound up being exciting games, but for 2+ hours they were garbage. NFL coaches need to sack up and start playing no-huddle offenses earlier in games, because it's excruciating to watch the first 3 quarters. If I only wanted to watch a little bit of exciting play at the end of a game I would start giving a shit about the NBA.

And the commercials mostly sucked, especially the Polamalu-Mean Joe Greene take off. Good God that was a bad idea. Were Super Bowl commercials ever actually good, or is that some sort of amazing and all-pervasive urban legend that has seeped into everyone's subconscious.

And one more thing: can we stop with this nonsense about Ben Roethlisberger being good? How many times did I hear, "He's not a great quarterback, he's a great football player!"? Or "you can't look at his numbers. Look at the wins"? Oh, so he's a great football player who happens to suck at the position he plays? No, Ben Roethlisberger is a fucking horrible QB on whom I wasted a high fantasy pick and therefore hate. He sucks, he is just on a team with an awesome defense. This "football player" stuff is like when people call someone like Darin Erstad a "baseball player." Technically, yes, those are their professions. But they are bad at their jobs and just happened to win a title or two based on the abilities of their teammates. Fuck Ben Roethlisberger.

Movie Reviews: Frost/Nixon

2009-02-03T12:29:00.004-05:00

It is difficult to review a movie that you thought was good, so I didn't get around to doing this until more than a week since I went to see Frost/Nixon. Really, I wish I had done this blogging thing back when I saw Juno, because I could have summoned thousands of words of pure vitriol after seeing that shitbasket. Anyhoo, here are my thoughts on Frost/Nixon:

Frank Langella was awesome. I haven't seen The Wrestler yet, although I want to, but Mickey Rourke better blow my fucking mind if he's going to deserve the best actor Oscar. I obviously have no memories of Richard Nixon, but Langella seems to have captured a certain slimy charisma that I assume is pretty representative of the man.

This movie really should have just been called Nixon and Occasionally Frost, because Langella just destroys everyone else in the movie. I only know Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in The Queen (where he was pretty good), but he basically doesn't have a character to play in this movie. If this movie was meant to be a showdown between two opposing forces then maybe Ron Howard or the script writers should have taken a little time to make David Frost into a character, not just some random British guy with sideburns who happens to be on TV and only speaks as a reaction to the superior characters surrounding him.

Sam Rockwell was good as the researcher who hates Richard Nixon. Probably his best performance since Charlie's Angels, although it lags slightly behind his one line in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I didn't really get the point of the whole docu-drama elements of the movie. Just tell the story stright up without the useless taking head bits thrown in--they detracted from the movie.

I don't know if the point was to get me to feel sorry for Richard Nixon, but that basically was the outcome of watching this movie. We get that he's a scumbag, but he a likeable scumbag and the whole movie therefore comes off as a little too sympathetic towards him.

All in all a very good movie. Probably the only Ron Howard movie I have liked besides Apollo 13. I give it a 3.8/4 on the dtro scale of good.

Land of the NOT SO Free

2009-01-18T13:19:00.003-05:00

Alright, LCT sent this to me a couple weeks ago and I finally got around to posting it. This is a persuasive (and boy is it ever!) essay written by KK Hollidae when she was in high school. I say this with no hyperbole and with my tongue outside my cheek: this is the single greatest piece of writing ever written by human hands. I'll add my thoughts after every paragraph because we all know that's why you're here--to know my thoughts on all things great and small. And because it's like six pages and we need breaks every now and then.

Land of the Not So Free
America is the homeland of freedom, the land of opportunity, the protected earth of liberty and justice. However, is our nation truly as righteous and just as we all believe? Presently, the laws of the government are set up so that a 16 year old living in Belgium, or France, or Germany, or Italy, or Spain, the lists goes on and on, has more rights than a 20 year old in the US. How then is this country viewed as the land of the free? In this country, a citizen must be 21 years of age in order to legally consume any alcoholic beverage (United). This law is unjust and demeaning of human rights. If America truly is the country of freedom, then the minimum drinking age must be 18 and not 21.

"The protected earth of liberty and justice." That is some badass shit right there. No beating around the bush for KK, as she goes right in listing the Commie Pinko countries that let you drink as a toddler and even has a source reference. Who is her source? UNITED- THAT'S WHO!

The United States and only three other countries in the entire world have the minimum drinking age at 21 years old, and the US is the only country out of the four who enforces this law. Almost every single other country has the minimum age at 18 or below (Legal). Why is it that a 20 year old citizen of the US is not considered to be as mature as a 16 year old citizen of, fore say, France, Spain, Germany, or Great Britain? How is it that a 16 year old in Europe is considered responsible enough to consume an alcoholic beverage, but a 20 year old American is not? Either the teenagers across seas are more mature and trusting than American teens, or the US government is too strict when it comes to alcohol.

Lots of good stuff here. "Fore say," is not a phrase that I have heard of, but I will definitely be using it in every paper I write from now on (assuming I go back to college). I'm not sure why Euroteens would have to be more "trusting" to be allowed to drink, but hey that's the point. THEY'RE NOT! So let us drink! 5 years ago! Also, what the hell are these sources? LEGAL, UNITED...those are just words.

Moreover, the United States government has given alcohol a “special ness that it does not deserve” (Chafetz 710). In many European countries alcohol is viewed as an important part of culture. For example, the minimum drinking age in France is 16. However, it would not be unusual for a 15 year old to have a glass of wine at dinner. In fact its expected that children view wine as an important part of French traditions (Legal). Where as in America, wine and alcohol are viewed as highly destructive drugs. When will Americans realize that by viewing alcohol negatively makes teens want to drink more?

There really is a certain ness around drinking when you're a teen. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it is definitely a special ness. Also, let's not get into French culture here, because French children accept as part of their culture homosexual intercourse and making ape noises at the athletically superior Africans who make up their nation's sports teams.

Alcohol should not be a complete mystery for teenagers. Most teenagers drink because an alcoholic beverage is some unknown, adult only substance that is illegal and frowned upon. Parents should allow their curious child a sip of wine at dinner. That way the child would experience alcohol in a supervised environment as apposed to a wild and unsafe party. Andrew Struttaford states that “intelligent parents do not let alcohol become a big deal, a mystery, or a battleground” (24). The more people emphasize the downfalls of drinking, the more teenagers are driven to drink.

Yea, this makes sense to me. Good points KK!

Many people argue that since the minimum drinking age was raised from 19 to 21 years old, alcohol related accidents have decreased. This is true, and is mainly the reason so many people feel that the higher age is beneficial. However, this decrease began in 1980, which was before the drinking age was changed. Therefore the decline is due to other factors, not the change in the age limit (Engs 2). Since 1980, students in school have been educated strongly about the effects of drunk driving, cars have become equipped with airbags and seat belts, speed limits have been lowered, and there are free taxi services from drinking establishments. All these factors combined are what caused the decline of accidents.

What bar has a free taxi service? Is this some Ohio thing? because, if so, I still don't want to move there. And KK missed a great chance at using my favorite new phrase. It should read "Therefore the decline is due to other factors like, fore say, airbags..."

Another arguable point is the drinking and driving issues. In other countries it is much harder to receive a drivers license. Also many people do not own or drive cars, instead they use buses or taxis. This provides a problem considering that most teens in the US do drive and there are much higher accident rates compared between the US and European countries. However, a better solution to underage drinking and driving should not be to raise the drinking age. Instead, it would be much more effective if the government would give harsher punishments to drunk drivers, especially young drivers (Stuttaford 24). Teenagers would think more than twice about getting in a car after consuming an alcoholic beverage, if they knew that the punishment would change their lives. The government should stop focusing on the issues of underage drinking and should focus instead on the penalties for DUIs.

If this was really the land of the free, the protected earth of liberty and justice, then drunk drivers would be drawn and quartered or sent to live in leper colonies. It's really only fair.

Also, many people argue the government’s purpose for a high drinking age is a matter of safety. On the contrary, by lowering the age limit to 18, an 18 year old would actually be safer. Teens will continue to drink whether it is illegal or not. A survey was taken at East Carolina University in the same year that the drinking age was raised. They were asked how this age change would effect their alcohol consumption. 5% intended to stop drinking; 9% decided to use other drugs stating that “its easier to hide pot then a 6-pack of beer,” as one student wrote; 16% planned on getting false id’s; and 70% of the students planned on just changing their drinking location (Hanson 34). This age change has done nothing positive, instead it challenges teens to break the law. So, if it was legal to drink at 18, then teens would be drinking in safer, supervised places. They also would not hesitate to take a drunk friend to the hospital if the friend was in severe condition, because they would not worry about getting into trouble with the police or parents.

Well played East Carolina guy from the 80s, well played. I totally agree with KK on this. When I see a law it's like a challenge. Unless they change the legal manslaughter age to 22, I am going to consider it a personal challenge from the US government to slaughter one man every week until my demands are met. You have been warned government. (On a personal note: my friends had no problem taking me to a hospital when I was drunk as shit at the age of 16-- leading to a police cruiser stopping by my house, my parents grounding me for 3+ months, and the loss of my bowl. I still miss you, Spicy Virginia.)

Additionally, by telling teenagers they can not drink, their desire for alcohol increases. Teens are more likely to rebel against a law that tells them what they can not do. Andrew Stuttaford also holds a similar opinion. He strongly believes that “adult disapproval magically transforms that margarita from a simple pleasure into an especially thrilling act of rebellion” (24). When the drinking age was raised from 18 to 19, a NY State survey found that it had made no significant difference in the under-age students consumption rates, drinking attitudes, or drinking problems. In fact a similar survey in Texas was taken and it found that the underage drinking rates increased (Hanson 34). This just proves that when a teenager is told he or she can not have something, it makes him or her want to have it even more.

This seems like we're going over the same ground again, but I do agree that laws should not tell you what you can not do. Laws should say what you can do. Fore say, the law shouldn't say you can not commit murder, it should say you CAN not-commit-murder. I've been not-committing-murder for most of my life. And a margarita can't be a thrilling act of rebellion. It's more like a complement to an uncomfortable birthday dinner with friends where you get stuck sitting next to people you don't know that well. A stuntman shot--now there's rebellion.

To really benefit teenagers, responsible drinking behaviors should be taught to teens, instead of just telling them not to drink (Engs 2). If teens are taught safe responsible drinking habits, then when it does come the time that they are offered a drink, they will drink in moderation. This also would teach teens responsibility. At age 16 a teenager is allowed to risk his or her own life and the lives of the hundreds that are also on the roads. Driving is an extremely large responsibility, and yet parents are willing to allow their children to do so. Unsafe driving is just as dangerous and deadly as unsafe drinking. Yet there is a five year difference between the two. For the same reasons a parent allows a child to learn responsible driving habits, a parent should also allow a child to learn responsible drinking habits .

If the drinking age were changed, parents could teach their kids responsible drinking and responsible driving habits, yes. More importantly, though, they would be able to teach teens responsible drinking and driving habits. Drinking and driving is only unsafe if you are bad at it and the drinking age really exacerbates this problem.

One more final point, the government has made all other adult privileges at the age of 18 except for the privilege of consuming an alcoholic beverage. The 26th Amendment to the US constitution is known as the “Age of Majority”. As of this year, 2002, the law stands that at age 18 one has all the same rights of a person above the age of 21 except when dealing with alcohol (Chafetz 710). By separating the alcohol privileges from the rest, an 18 year is losing their human rights of being a citizen of the United States.

Fuck yea, KK! Preach it sister! We want(ed) our goddamn human rights. We are NOT SO FREE! Also, I think that I will start referring to myself as a major since I am over 18. Yea, Major Trott. I like the sound of that.

The government is hypocritical; they say that 18 year olds are considered adults, yet they label them as children when it comes to alcohol. At age 18, one is allowed to get married, but is not allowed to toast to their new wife or husband with a glass of champagne. At age 18 one can be drafted for the war, but is not allowed to enjoy a beer with other adult friends. At age 18, one is allowed to smoke deadly cigarettes, which can be just as damaging as alcohol, or in some cases worse; yet still one is not allowed enjoy the simple satisfaction of a margarita until three years later. At age 18, one is allowed to vote; so at 18 their opinions are valued, and essential for major nationwide decisions, but they hold no rights to drink alcohol. At age 18, one is trialed as an adult and can receive such a punishment as the death penalty, but is considered no more mature then a mere, helpless child when it comes to alcohol. At age 18, a woman has the right to abort her own child without parental consent, and yet she can not decide on her own to have a cocktail. At age 18, one can buy a double-barrel rifle, which basically gives that person the power to end any form of life, but that same person can not buy a harmless 6-pack of beer. Does anything seem a bit wrong with that? How are 18 year olds considered responsible enough to own a deadly, murderous weapon such as a sniper, but are not responsible enough to own a can of beer? The thought is unimaginable. 18 year olds can also sign contracts, ignore curfews, see x-rated movies, be kicked out of their own homes legally, and are eligible for many more job opportunities. However, the law states that they are not ready to consume any form of alcohol (Smith 88). The restriction on alcohol until age 21 belittles a 18-year-olds place in society. It is the one thing that keeps them from being considered fully developed independent adults.

I almost don't want to say anything. That's just about the greatest thing I have ever read. Abortions, job opportunities, "the simple satisfaction of a margarita": this is a truly outstanding paragraph. 18 year olds can't drink, but they can OWN a sniper. That's the deadliest form of human chattel out there, but an 18 year old with a personal sniper can't enjoy the cool contentment of a mojito, the regal refreshment of some Crown Royal, or the glorious gratification of a slippery nipple.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a "double-barrel rifle," but it's nice to know that within my reach is "power to end any form of life." If I had a gun I'd shoot trees, cats, British people, moss, amoebas, children with harelips, hummingbirds....the list goes on and on. And it's good to know that as a major I am legally allowed to ignore my curfew.

In conclusion, having the minimum alcohol consumption age set at 21 derides the rights of adults. 18 year olds are adults, and they need to be treated as adults, with all adult privileges. How can this country be viewed as the land of the free? A 20 year old receives an exceedingly harsh punishment if caught having had a sip of a cocktail. Whereas at the same time across the ocean, a 16 year old German girl can be binge drinking to the point where she passes out and not receive any punishment at all. If America truly was the land where freedom lives, then the drinking age would be 18. Our Lady of Liberty would be ashamed that her once free land has lost the justice and righteousness that it formerly held.

Thoughts:
The motherhumping constitution is deriding your rights new majors!

Our Lady of Liberty sounds like a pilgrimage site where some little girl named Fatima saw a vision of the Madonna on Cinco de Mayo in the foothills outside Mexico City.

A passed out German girl receives the harshest punishment of all: men filming themselves shitting on her chest (German porn is sick).

KK, you truly outdid yourself with this paper. I salute you for having the bravery to envision a land in which teens are not derided or deprived of their human rights; instead they will, fore say, proudly drive drunk well, toast their abortions, and use their snipers to kill anything they damn well please while revelling in the drinkability of Bud Light.

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire and Last Chance Harvey

2008-12-31T01:14:00.009-05:00

Ok, so as not to be unfair to Benjamin Button, I have decided to review the other two movies I saw while at home over the break:

The first is Slumdog Millionaire, which, like Benjamin Button, is a leading contender for a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Unlike Benjamin Button, it is probably deserving, because it is a good movie that did not piss me off (those, of course, being the main criteria the Academy looks at).

Here is what is good about the movie:

The setup. It's basically a poor kid (Jamal) from the slums of Mumbai who makes it all the way to the final question on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Except that he only gets there because the specific questions he is asked all pertain to his life in some way. Essentially, the movie is a series of flashbacks that explain how he knows the answer to the previous question and these flashbacks put together add up to the kid's life story. Effective and interesting way to tell the story.

The setting. The movie bascially travels through the slums of Mumbai and various other places in India. The wide views of Mumbai and other places are cool looking, and I especially liked the sequence where the two brothers basically lived on the roofs of trains travelling all over India. Unlike Benjamin Button which hints at hurricane Katrina, and uses specific references ("Hey, how bout this N'Orlins weather! Am I right? Remember how we are in New Orleans right now in this movie here?!") and horrible southern accents by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett to tell you it's in New Orleans, Slumdog Millionaire actually is set somewhere and it shows you. Also, based on this movie India is fucked up.

The story. That's pretty general I guess, but it really is just a good movie overall. It's like an epic on a smaller scale than Benjamin Button. Slumdog Millionaire is just trying to tell a story and it runs the gamut of emotions over the course of Jamal's life to that point (he is only 18), but mostly it is just entertaining and interesting. It gets to the emotions and it makes you happy and sad and such, but it doesn't try to smack you over the head with morals or themes for the most part. Benjamin Button, on the other hand, taught me about the impermanence of life and to cherish the happy moments and shit, but that was the problem. It just fucking TOLD ME THAT in scene after scene toward the middle/end parts of the movie and it just dragged on and made sure it fucking preached to me about transience and love and the transience of love. The beginning of the movie was just sort of telling a story about a weird guy who is aging backwards and it was entertaining and interesting---that is what all of Slumdog Millionaire is like.

Here is what is bad about the movie:

These are all sort of minor quibbles, because overall I thought it was a very good movie (although it's been sort of critically overhyped).

The questions: I know nothing about Indian culture obviously, but it seemed to me that Who Wants to be an Indian Millionaire is the easiest game show of all time. Does anyone know about cricket? Who has the most centuries? That seems like who has the most homeruns or something. Am I wrong? C'mon. And the last question was so retardedly easy that it took away the aspect of suspense when Jamal locked in his final answer.

Honestly, did neither of these people get any play over the course of their lives. Jamal and the girl, whose name I can't remember at the moment, were all about each other since they were like 9 years old. F'real Jamal, you couldn't pull a bit a slash when you were running scams around the Taj Mahal? Those Mahal girls give it up like whoa!

Joe Pesci. Or should I say, the Indian version of Regis Philbin, because he looked like the Indian version of Joe Pesci. Actually, he should probabaly be listed on the positive side. He was more like Goodfellas Joe Pesci than Gone Fishin' Joe Pesci, but any Joe Pesci is usually a negative. Still unclear.

Here is good things:

The premise of the movie was a bit unorthodox for a RomCom. A wedding, yes, but one where the Father of the Bride* did not seem particularly welcome and makes himself awkward immediately by constantly talking on the phone in the same way my Dad would (i.e. holding the phone across his face [i.e. putting it in his right hand and holding it to his left ear]).

The actors: Dustin Hoffman, despite his SHORTcomings (haha he's short!), seems like a good actor and so does Emma Thompson, whom you might know from those movies you've never seen.

The subplot with the mother and the Polack is kinda funny, I guess.

Here is bad:

I saw a review on Rotten Tomatoes that said something like, "at the very least this movie proves that you're never too old to do a trying-on-dresses montage." Yeah, that's pretty accurate. This is not a groundbreaking movie, ok. We are dealing with a pretty typical romantic comedy plot, spiced up by the addition of... nothing in particular.

Dustin Hoffman is 317 years old, but he looks 400 at best. Not to mention the fact that he is legally a midget in 37 out of the 50 states. It's hard to buy him as a romantic lead.

Syphilis: it's a danger when entering into any relationship. Even a fictional cinema one--this was not fully adressed.

Conclusions: Slumdog is 3.7 out of 4 stars. Harvey is 2.6, so as to be ranked above Benjamin Button. If you have to see one movie and one movie only this January, though, you should probably go rent In Bruges.

* Steve Martin can suck a big fat dick

Hey Brett! Fuck your Mom

2008-12-28T22:59:00.004-05:00

Hey you. Yeah you, retarded hick boy. I'm talking to you. I am somewhere between drunk and hungover from tailgating right now so I may not be thinking that clearly. But there's something I want to say to you: Eat a bag of cancerous dicks.

Maybe I am not making myself clear. I want you to consume all sorts of unthinkably disgusting and harmful things so that you might have some idea what it is like to watch you one-arm gunslings to the goddamn Dolphins all day. Remember when you put on that green jersey this afternoon? It was right after the bowl of grape nuts and the massage and before you and Mangenius decided to stick your fists up the metaphorical anuses of thousands of fans and then extend your middle fingers. Yea, that jersey. Everyone else on your team was wearing the same color, and that's the color you were supposed to aim your passes at.

Listen Grizzly McAmerica'sPlayer, this Jets season was hard for me. I had already turned against you at least a year ago. I understand why you have been so popular. You had that down-home-aww-shucks-mister-I-juss-wanna-play-me-some-football thing going. You seemed like a nice enough guy and your dad died and whatever. You inspired people like Forrest Gump and Corky from that show I don't remember. Everyone thought, "Hey if this monkey-brained fucker can be good at football, maybe there's hope for us all." I get it, but I wasn't on board.

For one, Peanut had already shoved the goddamn Favre DVD down my throat, so I was set. Did I need to know about your upbringing in Kiln and how your Uncle Cletus molested you when you were nine? No. Did I make up one of those facts? No.* Not to mention the freaking media acted like you were motherfuckin Mother fuckin Teresa or some shit. I hadn't realized that you were the only football player in the history of feet and balls who LOVED football. You were a gunslinger. You played like a kid out there. You played with the passion of a million suns burning on the summer solstice. Fuck that. You were never any more special than the media made you out to be. You were like a gunslinger who occasionally misfired and shot his friends in the femoral artery. You played like a kid who was too stupid to realize that crippling interceptions were bad for your team.

So obviously, Brett, I was already sort of heading down the road of not liking you. These are not new opinions of mine, but even if I was getting sick of you I still had a soft spot I guess. I mean you were Brett Favre! And then you pulled the retirement schtick for a couple of years. Are you? Aren't you? What's going on with Brett? You basically said "Hey, ESPN et al., please stroke my cock while I hold hostage the organization that has paid me exorbitant amounts of money to sometimes successfully throw an oblong ball at massively-more-athletic black guys. And remember it is only because I LOVE THE GAME that I am so torn about whether or not to take steroids** and accept some more millions to be slobbered on all over again by you sycophantic fucks."

So I was done with you basically. I appreciated that you were a great player. A hall-of-famer if that means anything in football. You won a pretty memorable super bowl and lost a more memorable one. But that was it. The gunslinging and the all-American plays-like-a-kid Kornheiserisms were grating enough without you actually acting like a dick. And then you pulled the shit again this offseason and Ted Thompson grew a pair and said "Hey Brett! Fuck your Mom. We're going with Rodgers." Good for you Ted. I liked that, I agreed with that. I wanted you end up on the Vikings so that even Packers fans would have to root against you and grudgingly accept the fact that you were a dick. And then what did you do...

You up and got traded to the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets. The Jets. My Jets. My football team with its mediocre history and its mild expectations. The Jets, who could basically be ignored by the media, chill out in the Giants' shadow, and hopefully make it to their biannual playoff loss. You fucker. Now tickets were twice as pricey and your jerseys were selling like hotcakes (great investment Timmy and Plunkett) and everyone was watching the Jets and picking them for the playoffs and so forth. Every story related to the NFL was about how you were doing and how Aaron Rodgers was doing filling in those titanic-sized shoes of yours. Every MNF broadcast was Tony Kornheiser talking about you, no matter how tangential or inane. It was like he was playing that game from Super Troopers where the guy had to say "Meow" but instead he had to say "Favre" and then wait to see how long the football viewing publice would turn on him. Basically, you fucked shit up for me.

Now I'm living down in DC, Brett, so I didn't get to watch many of your games. I could phase you out as the Mets collapsed, and my college career collapsed, and other shit was happening. And then you had that game against the Patriots on a Thursday night. And I checked you and the Jets out down at Continental and there was a Pats fan and I got caught up in the game and the Jets won! In overtime! We stuck it to those Boston fucks! This was going to be our year! I thought, hey maybe I can get behind this Jets team despite the presence of Favre. This could be the best team I've seen since Vinny Testaverde was throwing shotputs over the middle to Keyshawn. The very sadness that is having Testaverde and Keyshawn as your best football memories MADE me want to get beind this Jets team. And then you beat the undefeated Titans. Best team in the AFC! NY-NY Superbowl! Well that's what ESPN was saying, and although I saw that that was pretty dumb I really thought this was a hell of a team and maybe I can learn to like this Favre character after all. And then...

Look, you just fucking sucked, ok. There's no point breaking down every game or each mistake. You fucking sucked and if Dick Jauron and JP Losman hadn't already gotten their checks from Roger Goodell to keep you in the playoff hunt you would have lost five straight games to finish the year. That is fucking weak in and of itself, but when you lose to the Niners and Seahawks and Broncos (no offense Pank)...c'mon. You collapsed, and that is hard for me right now. There is a big difference between being a Pirates or a Raiders fan, for instance, and being a Mets and Jets fan. The former people know going in that their team sucks. The might make a random signing or two and glean some false hope, and then the season begins and they watch and they say "Oh yeah, it's the Pirates/Raiders/Whoever. We suck. Now I will go be a productive and useful member of society." The Mets and Jets, however, play pretty well. They do enough to stay competitive year-in year-out and keep the fans interested. And you watch them and they're playing pretty well...hey, look, they're leading the division! All they have to do is win a couple games against some crappy teams and they're in the playoffs. And then they shit the bed. They just have explosive fountainous bouts of diarrhea, and it's all over the pillowcases and the headboard and everything. And I feel like I have wasted so much time and thought and money on these fucking teams, and then they just throw on some steel-toed boots and kicks me in the nuts as a thanks for all that.

But it's worse today, Brett. And it's worse because it's your fault. You sucked and you dragged the Jets down, and Chad Pennington gets a home game against the Ravens next weekend because you were horrible. And you are not a Jet. This is not some TrueYankeeism-type nonsense I'm talking about. This is the Jets. They are the Mets. They are the second team, the overlooked team, the team that sneaks up on you and wins and you go how the fuck did they win. They are an underdog. But, Brett you are the ultimate fucking overdog. You can't sneak up on anyone because at all times you are followed by a retinue of bootlickers with cameras and microphones. You never belonged on my team and I never even liked you any way. And then you were here and you got my hopes up, and you dashed them.

YOU did that, Brett. You ruined the whole goddamn season, and you're gonna do it again next year for some similar-minded sports fan in Buffalo or Seattle or somewhere when you unretire again. You dick.

*Actually yes.

** So Roger Clemens was pretty clearly cheating. He went to the Astros and still had the heat and had a sub-2 ERA at the age of 42 or so. And people were sort of talking about this way before the Mitchell Report. But Brett Favre looks completely and utterly washed up for a couple years, comes back with the fastball, and has one of his best years ever leading the Packers to the NFC Championship at the age of 38 and I hear nothing. Good thing only baseball has a steroid problem, because if NFL players took steroids I know who I'd suspect.

Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2008-12-28T22:47:00.003-05:00

When I'm home I go to the movies a lot with my mother and sister. Case in point, I went to see Benjamin Button on Christmas afternoon. Here is the review I wrote last night at 3 in the morning when I was drunk. And remember it's easier to be negative than positive:

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Christmas afternoon. I was with my mom and sister and I hadn’t seen the Cobble Hill theater that crowded since sometime back in 261 days (like maybe on the day I saw Batman & Robin for Tyler Didin’s Birthday). Anyway here are the good things about Benjamin Button:

The premise is cool. A man who gets yougner instead of older. That’s pretty original, and you can vaguely recognize Brad Pitt’s face in the little mini-oldman version of Benjamin. It looks pretty cool and I gotta give it up for that.

Cate Blanchett is pretty hot. I always thought of Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth and shit. In this movie she’s a ballerina and shit, and frankly she seems like she’s a pretty attractive woman.
Julia Ormond is in this, which is pretty random. First Knight, Legends of the Fall, Benjamin Button. It’s been a while but apparently she is still alive.

The parts where Benjamin is in Murmansk or whatever. I thought the part where he was in Russia in that hotel was pretty good. Tilda Swinton is a good actress and that’s an original setting, so that was something there.

Once again, since I don’t want to be totally negative, the first hour or soo was pretty cool. Actually, all the parts where Benjamin looks old are pretty good. People sort of realize that he’s not the age that he looks, but he still looks old so it’s kinda cool. Old lady is like “Hey, stay away from my granddaughter” and then his ‘mom’ is like “You’re my little boy even if you look really old” and shit. It’s a cool concept.

Here’s what is bad about the movie:

Cate Blanchett is a slut. Yea Daisy, you act like a little slut piece and Benjamin waits for you (sort of). Sounds a lot like Jenny and Forrest Gump, which makes total sense.

The whole scene where Daisy gets injured in Paris: One little thing happens and then it effects this other thing and then this other thing happens and it plays into this series of events and these other things happen and isn’t it crazy how life is like this and all these random small events can add up to a bigger thing and this is HOW LIFE IS!!! No, there’s a movie called Amelie, and it is ALSO set in Paris and it’s actually good. You just ripped it off. Actually, this idea was explored in a movie starring Ashton Kutcher called the Butterfly Effect. If you are copying an Ashton Kutcher movie you are not adding anything to humanity.

I appreciate the fact that this is some sort of modern day fairy tale. This movie does not exist within the exact realm of reality as we know it. However, it takes place over the course of many years, basically covering WWI thru WWII and then the 50s, 60s, etc. Like Forrest Gump, only it started a few decades earlier. Luckily, our hero, Benjamin Button grew up in a 1920s New Orleans that was completely and utterly absent of racism. As we all know it was totally normal to run into black pygmies in 1920s Louisiana and then ride the streetcar with them.

Queenie. Listen, I bought this character for quite a while. And then she degenerated into “black woman stereotype mother.” “Oh Benjamin, yous lookin so good boy. I ams yo MAMA. I thinks you oughta see this Daisy girl. I is no longer a real human being.” (Again, this is my personal opinion so don’t think I am calling the filmmakers racist.)

The sequence at the end where we get the “everybody’s different but isn’t THAT what makes us truly special” montage. Some people get younger, some are artists, some dance, some swim the English channel and shit. GUESS WHAT?!! Some people make stupid ass movies: their names are David Fincher and the Gumpian writers of this nonsense. Listen, you robbed Shwashank and Pulp Fiction about 15 years ago so why are you going around writing a less good version of your old stupid story.

Personal thought: I sat against the wall in the last seat of my row in the theater. I continually smacked my head against the wall, so as not to gouge my brain out with some sort of spontaneously-invented implement. Some people, any by “some” I mean a handful of mentally challenged adults, in the theater clapped at the end of this movie. Eileen immediately turned to me and was like “WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK ARE THEY CLAPPING AT?!!” At least, that’s what the expression on her face was saying. And this was totally unsolicited.

Objectively speaking, Benjamin Button was a stupid dumb movie that was kinda likeable at parts. I give it two and a half stars out of four. A cool concept that got bogged down in retarded stupid shit that uninformed moviegoers might find original and moving.
Maybe I’m just cynical.

We ain't voting for no moolie!

2008-11-04T22:53:00.003-05:00

Staten Island proves once again that it should not be a part of NY.

Shine on you crazy Razor

2008-11-04T14:16:00.006-05:00

The Mets have already made thier best acquisition of the off-season by hiring this gentleman to be the new 3rd base coach:

Anthony Razor Shines (like Jerry Manuel) is a former horrible Expo player from the 1980s, who describes himself as a "Motherfuckin' Human Switchblade." He became infamous in Chicago in 2007 for wearing a razorblade neckalce and always wielding a straight razor in the coach's box to intimidate the opponents' 3rd baseman into making errors:

Razor also once tried to murder AJ Pierzynski with a razor phone just to get a laugh out of his boy Thome. He did not appreciate Erstad being there:

Razor has the ability to enlarge his hand and turn it purple. He also doesn't suck total ass like Luis Aguayo.

Movie Reviews based on nothing whatsoever

2008-11-04T01:22:00.010-05:00

As an often broke and generally cheap person it can be hard to decide how to have fun on the weekends. Do I go to a bar and frivolously spend the money from my ever dwindling mutual fund once I get into that state of drunkenness where my largesse exceeds my means? Should I try to get KK Hollidae to get some pot from her friend knowing that it will mean I might have to see that girl with razor burn on her face with whom I once had an experience I'd prefer to forget? Perhaps I should try to have some substance-free fun by hustling some street ball with my boy Sidney before going home to my annoying voiced Latina girlfriend.* Of course, there's always the option of going to the movies and gorging myself on delicious popcorn. Everyone likes going to the movies, but as an often broke and generally cheap person it's hard to decide what movie to spend my money on. Knowing that others face a similar problem, I have decided to run down this weekend's top 5 box office films to let you know which ones are worth your 10 or 11 bucks. Enjoy, and remember that these reviews are based on conjecture, preconceived notions, and my baseless personal opinions:

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Summary: a light, forthy romp through the halls of Strathmore High as the seniors deal with the ups and downs of dating, friendships, schoolwork, and thinking about their future. Super-couple Benjamin and Kiara**, played by Zac "FagBangs" Efron and Vanessa "Turtle Wax" Hudgens, are having some difficulties in their relationship knowing they are going to colleges on opposite sides of the country (Efron scored an 11 on the ACT and only got offers from to play hoops at local JuCos, while Hudgens was accepted to Columbia's prestigious racial quota program). While mostly a fun, entertaining and family-friendly movie, HSM3:SY really knocks it out of the park by exploring the darker side of teenagedom: La'Quae confronts racial taunting, Jeannie has to deal with a pregnancy resulting from gymnastics coach-rape, and Hunter struggles to deal with an abusive father and falls in with the barbituate crowd.

Should I see it: Yes, if you like sucking dick. Otherwise no.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Summary: Actor-director-homeless vagrant Kevin Smith decided to take all the Judd Apatow people and make a zany sex comedy! YOWZA!! Long-time friends Zack and Miri, played by Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, are strapped for cash and decide to make amateur porn to pay the bills. Along the way the black dude from The Office, the guy who played Jay in all those other Kevin Smith movies, the horrible actors from Clerks and ClerksII, and some other people come in and make jokes about buttsex, poop, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and so forth. Smith really hits hard with some biting dialogue that sounds like nothing anyone would ever say (unless the actors say it really, really fast--then it's clever) unless that person were reading a script written by a jackass. Seth Rogen steals the show and continues to expand his range as an actor by tackling the role of a sarcastic Canadian with a beard.

Should I see it: Sure, if you like to be occasionally entertained while at the same time completely annoyed out of your mind. Otherwise, no.

Saw V

Summary: Whatever the bad guy from Saw's name is back and this time he's murdering people in newer and more disgusting ways. Danny Glover and Joe Pesci team up*** (for the 1st time since Gone Fishin') as a pair of hardboiled detectives with a personal grudge against the villain. However, things go bad when the cops are trapped and forced to make horrifically awful decisions to save themselves in what can only be described as an utter lose-lose situation. Can Pesci cut off his scrotum in time to find the combination to the lock that will open the metal door that has been installed in Glover's chest cavity to find the cut switch that will defuse the bomb full of praying mantis eggs that has been surgically implanted in his colon. There's only one way to find out!

Should I see it: Yes, if you are some kind of twisted sadist with a fetish for gore. Also, if you are very stupid. Otherwise, no.

Changeling

Summary: Angelina Jolie stars as an anemic mother in 1920s Los Angeles whose child is kidnapped. She then reprises her role from A Mighty Heart by going on TV and demanding his return over and over again and crying and screaming and shit. Soon, the cops find her kid and mother and son reunite, but wait! IT'S NOT HER SON! Turns out the cops have replaced her kid with and automaton from the future that is bent on destroying annoying actresses and gains strength by feeding on their tears. Clint Eastwood directs a gritty period drama, the combines the length and depressingness of Million Dollar Baby with the cultural relevance of some shit movie about World War II or a bunch of scumbags from Boston. Eastwood's world-shattering, eye-opening moral: the LAPD is bad. Thanks for the info, chief, you should probably die now. Keep an eye out for John Malkvoich in his first role since the hysterectomy.

Should I see it: Yes, if you like overrated, boring Best Picture nominees. Otherwise, no.

#5 is some movie called the Haunting of Molly Malone, which sounds like it's pretty stupid. But you know it's stupid so it might be kinda fun to watch. This post is getting too long, so we're gonna wrap it up.

Conclusion/Recommendations: Spend your money on booze for the next couple weeks and then go see Quantum of Solace.

*May actually be the plot to White Men Can't Jump

**Not actual cahracter names

***These people are NOT in this movie

Joe the Plumber speaks out

2008-10-16T18:59:00.003-04:00

Dtro was actualy able to obtain an exclusive interview where Joe expounded upon his views.

Dtro: Joe, thanks for taking the time to sit down with me.

JtP: No problem, glad to do it.

Dtro: So I guess you're a big star now, huh?

JtP: Well, I'm no Matt Damon or anything. It's not like I'm Brad Pitt or George Clooney or that black guy from Deep Impact. I don't star in movies just to make that clear. I'm just a regular guy, a plumber.

Dtro: Right. So I guess you're not a big fan of social security?

JtP: No, I hate it. I mean I have parents and all, but I don't want them taking my money. Usually, I sneak into my folks' retirement home and steal their social security checks and burn them. Because they're communist, and my parents understand that I tihnk they are Communists and should go back to Cuba with all the other Commie Mexicans. That's what I call Cubans.

Dtro: Speaking of Mexicans, what are your thoughts on immigration?

JtP: Look, we live in the greatest nation in the world. And it's our nation. I don't think we should be letting in Mexicans or Commie Mexicans or some other type of Mexican, like from Spain or France or something. We just need to build a big moat around the country. I'm hear to help lay the first pipe.

Dtro: Well there is the Rio Grande...

JtP: I don't believe in rivers.

Dtro: Ok well, let's talk about Iraq.

JtP: Yes, let's talk about it. Iraq was a good idea. We gave those people freedom, ok. You know how grateful those little Desert Mexicans are? My friends who went over there tell me about it all the time; they're like, 'Joe, those Mexicans over there talk some gibberish shit, but I'm pretty sure what they're saying is thank you so much American Jesus man for giving me my freedom.'

Dtro: Alright Joe, let's hit on some issues we haven't heard you speak on before. What are your thoughts on gay rights?

JtP: I think the gays should have rights. (laugh) Yea, the right to get stomped in the face with my PLUMBING BOOTS!

Dtro: Ok, what are your thoughts on a woman's right to choose?

JtP: Well abortions should be illegal, clearly. We didn't go over to Iraq acting all Jesus just to be killing babies at home. I mean, if my wife didn't want to have a kid maybe she should have exercised her right to NOT get date-raped by me in high school.

Dtro: What are your thoughts on Barack Obama allegedly associating with a domestic terrorist?

JtP: I think it's horrible. I mean who is this guy to try and fight against this great nation. The only people who have a right to do that are me and my boys from the Legion of Extraordinary Hollandmen who formed a militia based on our God-given right to secede and own sweet ass guns. Get that government out of my FUCKING PLUMBER FACE!

Dtro: Ok, thank you Joe. Do you have any final thoughts?

JtP: Let's go Buckeyes!

Dtro: You truly are a douche.

You future world series MVP....

2008-10-16T18:30:00.003-04:00

...is this undersized cloven-hoofed bastard.

The debates as I saw them

2008-10-15T23:18:00.003-04:00

CROOOOOOOOOONNNNNYYISSSSSMMM! AAAARGGGGHHH!

Who to root for in the MLB Playoffs: Abbreviated Version

2008-10-08T15:53:00.005-04:00

Well, not these guys obviously. I still don't think this team is better than the Mets, they're just better at not sucking ass at the worst possible times. Although I must say I really enjoy watching games in Citizen's Bank Park. No, it's not because of the great sightlines, or those Luzinski pork sandwiches, or the newness and cleanness of it. I think it's because it makes me nostalgic for the Amity field on Knapp St. and Avenue V where I used to play when I was 11 and could almost hit homeruns...except Amity had higher fences so you didn't get those real cheap ones like at CBP.

Not these guys either. Why? Well, they traded the only guy I really liked on the team in batshit insane Manny Ramirez (more on him later). Of course you also have the fact that they are from Boston and are not only cheered on by the prejudiced fucks (yes, I am prejudiced against folks from Massachusetts, so what?) but also by a growing legion of bandwagon hopping dicks that rival only the late 90s Yankees fans in their number and loathesomeness. Plus the Sox have already won 2 WS titles in the lsat 4 years, and the Celtics won this past year, and the Patriots cheated teir way to 3 Super Bowl wins. Do the bastards up in Boston deserve to see another championship team? I say hell no. It's really amazing how fast these guys went from a team to root for in '04 to beat the Yankees to becoming the Yankees themselves.

Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, that other guy. Wha's not to like about this team? Wait, what? Why are these guys on this 50 year anniversary 2008 poster dealie? Anyway, I've always been a fan of Manny's (interesting note: I used to get batting lessons from a former coach of Manny's from when he played for Youth Service. Also of note, Mel Zitter never did shit for my swing). Obviously it would be great to see Manny succeed to the chagrin of those knoblickers up in Boston who did not appreciate the fact that, despite not caring whatsoever about the game, Manny is one of the best hitters of all time. Torre getting to the WS a year after the Yanks kicked him to the curb would also be fun. Also, they're not the Phillies and Hiroki Kuroda and Andre Ethier made some contributions to my fantasy team down the stretch. So I say, root for the Dodgers (even if Ned Coletti is a stupid jerk).

And, of course, your obvious choice for most root-worthy team is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Yea, Devil. Let's not get bogged down in what the Mets might have looked like over the past four years with Scott Kazmir on the team and instead focus on the fact that this team went from worst to first in a division that includes the Yankees and Red Sox. The Rays winning would be a huge slap in the face to the high-payroll teams in their division and Akinori Iwamura wears a glove made out of the skin of a whale species so rare that none of you have even heard of it (at least, that's why I think he won't let people get a good look at it) which is pretty cool. Also, there's a chance that Matt Garza could hit Youkilis in the face with a fastball, and I think that's clearly a good thing for everyone.

Conclusion: Root for a Rays-Dodgers World Series. That is clearly the outcome that causes the most pain and suffering to the Yankees, Red Sox, and their dimwitted amoral slope-browed fanbases. Also, fuck the Phillies. In the end, I gotta root for the Rays to win it all, because screw Joe Torre.

Aww shucks

2008-09-30T11:20:00.006-04:00

Well that sucked. The Mets once again blew their chance at the playoffs by losing to the Florida Marlins on the last day of the season. My congratulations to Peanut, who can't even name half the Brewers roster because he is a Packers fan...sorry about that. The Brewers haven't been in the playoffs since 1982, so I wish them the best, i.e. I hope they destroy the Phillies and then fail miserably against the Cubs and get to watch their hired gun leave for millions of dollars from the Yankees for whom Sabathia will be horrible for several months while recovering from the lingering pain that Ned Yost, Dale Sveum and the rest of the Brewers inflicted by making him throw 300 innings in a three-month span.

Anyhoo, the Mets. This is the 2008 Mets:

Jerry Manuel walking to the mound to take the ball from a shitty reliever just about sums this team up, doncha think? Billy Wagner was having a pretty lousy year by his standards, but when he went down so did any hope for the Mets to salvage this season. Luis Ayala, a man who the Nationals wanted to get rid of, was our closer for the final month of the season. Every single pitcher out of the bullpen was horrible with ridiculous lefty-righty splits (except for reverse splitter Duaner Sanchez). A lot of people over on metsblog and metsgeek seem to be bitching about David Wright and this team's lack of clutch hitting. Yes, that was certainly the case during the final weekend, but c'mon. This team tied with the Phillies for 2nd in the league in runs scored despite Brian Schneider, Luis Castillo, a revolving door outfield, etc. etc. There is nobody to blame here except for a bullpen that had 837 blown saves (statistic not official).

Sunday was a horrible ending to a disappointing season, but to pretend that I'm nearly as mad as last year would be wrong. The only reason I'm mad is because of last year. If the Mets had made the playoffs last year we'd be talking about the 2008 mets as a team that nearly overcame a bunch of injuries and a horrible bullpen to make the playoffs. Instead, they are labelled as chokers for the 2nd straight year. Yes, they choked in a very minor way over the past week---5 runs against Volstad, Nolasco, Olsen is horrible. They also lost that game against the cubs that they clearly should have won. FERNANDO TATIS, was a regular outfielder for half the year, and they almost made it (speaking of which, Fernando Tatis is the man!). Pedro Martinez was hurt half the time and Trachselesque the other half, and they almost made it. Luis Ayala was our closer down the stretch, and they almost made it. Scott Schoeneweis was on the roster, and they almost made it. Luis Castillo will be on the team for the next seven years, and they almost made it. Willie Randolph was allowed to flounder around until June, and they almost made it. OMAR MINAYA IS OUR GM, and they almost made it.

Which reminds me, fuck Omar Minaya and fuck the Wilpons for giving him a four-year extension. Giving Omar Minaya four years is almost as stupid as giving Luis Castillo four years, leading me to believe that the only other person (besides the Wilpons) dumb enough to extend Omar Minaya would be...Omar Minaya. Check out these team payrolls. Omar Minaya was given over $138 million dollars and converted that into 89 wins (LCT, you may not want to click on that link). Well, in 2007 he took $118 million and gave us 88 wins. Therefore, since 2006, that's $256 million for a slightly above average team. He took an extra 20 mil (most of which is Johan) and created 1 more win. Omar Minaya is not good at his job. He is constantly uncreative in putting together a bullpen and a bench. He prefers old and friendly players to young and/or talented ones. Marlon Anderson had a couple good months pinch-hitting? 2 years, 2.2 million. Luis Castillo is able to hobble his way to a decent OBP and was once a good player? 4 years, $25 million. Julio Franco is old and provides leadership? Protect him, not JESUS FLORES on the 40-man roster. Somebody was once on the Minaya-led Expos? Sign him up---Endy Chavez, Brian Schneider, Ryan Church, Fernando Tatis, Luis Ayala, Tony Armas, Claudio Vargas, get 'em all.

Here are the 3 good things Minaya has done with the Mets:
1)traded Kris Benson for Jorge Julio and John Maine, then traded Julio for El Duque
2)traded Xavier Nady for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez
3)extended Jose Reyes and David Wright for multi-year below-market contracts
Those are good things.

Here are some good things that have happened under Minaya's watch:
1)signed Carlos Beltran
2)signed Pedro Martinez (only if you buy into the whole "he changed the culture" around here thing, which I do somewhat. At the very least I think he made the Mets a more viable free agency destination)
3)traded Carlos Gomez et al. for Johan Santana
Those are good things that ANYBODY WITH HALF A BRAIN AND A BAZILLION DOLLARS TO WORK WITH could have done.

Here are some bad things that Omar Minaya has done:
1)Heath Bell (and Royce Ring) for Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins
2)Brian Bannister for Ambiorix Burgos
3)Henry Owens and Matt Lindstrom for Jason Vargas and Adam Bostick
4)Luis Castillo, Marlon Anderson, Julio Franco (over Jesus Flores)
5)LASTINGS MILLEDGE for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider (Church was solid, then hurt, then terrible. Schneider is a bad hitter, a decent thrower, and TERRIBLE AT ACTUALLY CATCHING PITCHES)
6)The whole Willie Randolph saga: Let me just say that I believe the only reason Willie Randolph was not fired after the debacle of 2007 is because Omar was using him as his fall guy. And guess what? it worked. When the Mets were playing like shit for the first two months, Willie got the blame and Omar eventually fired him after a long, drawn-out and embarassing saga. Jerry Manuel took over, the Mets played better, and Omar got an extension. Is Willie wholly responsible for the Mets being lousy? No. Is Jerry whole responsible for the Mets being pretty good? No. Is someon responsible for the Mets being lousy and then pretty good and thereby little better than mediocre? Yes, his name is Omar Minaya.

OK, enough for now. This season sucked, this weekend sucked, this team sucked. It's still not as bad as last year, but it's getting harder and harder to be a Mets fan, especially when the ownership doesn't recognize that the man they put in charge is shit at his job.

I'll have some more this week on my memories of Shea and who to root for in the playoffs (Hint: the freakin' Tampa Bay Rays).

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK...YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

2008-09-25T22:52:00.003-04:00

Holy shit, that was the craziest game all year. Ramon Martinez, Robinson Cancel--a hat tip to you gentlemen. Ricardo Rincon--go back to Mexico. Ryan Church--nice slide, chief. I still am not your biggest fan, but well done sir. Carlos Beltran--you have been much maligned by the NY media and the idiot fans that recent success has brought to the Mets, but I always believed in you. Sure, I wanted to punch you in the throat when you struck out looking at that Wainwright curveball, but you have been solid all year. Thank you for that.

And, Luis Aguayo or Jerry Manuel, whoever confused Daniel Murphy into bunting with 2 strikes in the ninth, you better go kiss Beltran's ass because he bailed you out for the dumbest play of the year. I'm looking at you Luis, you useless bastard. If the Mets make it, they can't put Luis Aguayo on the playoff coaching roster.

Let's go Pirates! For God's sake, show a little dignity.

Update: Fucking McLouth.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-24T23:08:00.004-04:00

I can't believe this motherfucking team. Fuck them in their choking pussy asses. David Wright is a little fucking bitch, who can't stick to the fucking strike zone when the game is on the line. Hey David, here's an idea: PLAY ON THE MOTHERFUCKING LINE every so often, instead of letting double after double roll by you. Ryan Church is a fucking anti-semitic piece of shit, who needs to be sent to the glue factory. Oliver Perez is a fucking infant. Big game pitcher my balls. Way to really earn your future bullshit contract in a walk year you formerly favortie mets pitcher of mine. Brian Schneider is the SECOND WORST HUMAN BEING OF ALL-TIME, slotting in nicely between Hitler and Stalin, and just lapping Genghis Khan. Luis fucking Aguayo is the most fucking horrible base coach in baseball. In fact, he might be the person who is the worst at their job in the history of fucking jobs. Motherfucker sends everybody for months even when they have no shot and then holds guys when it's a pennant race: you fucking bitch. Luis Ayala is a fucking cuntrag. Aaron Heilman (not involved in tonight's abortion) is a taintlicking 'mo of the highest order. I hope he dies in a horrific fire at Notre Dame's football stadium on homecoming weekend. Carlos Delgado---well you, good sir, FUCKED US IN THE ASS for a year and two months, resurgence or not. Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes---you HAVE BEEN MORE THAN ADEQUATE, so keep that up. Fernando Tatis, way to get hurt you jerk. Billy Wagner, why don't you go blow your effeminate cousin Larry, you incestuous inbred cocksucker. Brian Stokes--you got my hopes up with your strong initial play and then dashed them with your horribleness; you are a microcosm of this team, and for that I hate you. Schoeneweis, you look like a scumbag and you pitch like a douchefag. Feliciano and Smith---your mediocrity is bordering on pathlogical. Dirty Duaner--I feel for you man, but for God sakes just refuse to come in when Jerry asks...you know it's not going to work better than he does.

Jerry Manuel, Jerry Manuel. How do I feel about you? Well, whether it's your doing or not, you have guided the Mets to a much better record than our old friend Willie. However, YOU ARE WILLIE! Ha, you thought I wouldn't catch on but I did JerryWillie! I know it's you hiding behind those glasses and that too-cool-for-school demeanor. I recognize a man who is more content to trot out the same tired relievers in high-leverage situations rather than try someone new because they're too young(*cough* Parnell *cough*). I know a man who sticks with his "proven, veteran guys" even though they have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are not major league baseball players any more: FUCK YOU MARLON ANDERSON! I've seen this before JerryWillie, but I'm not getting fooled this time. You've hurt me too much already.

Creeping Sense of Dread and LT is a Pussy

2008-09-15T09:02:00.010-04:00

Oh sweet merciful Christ, the Mets are taking years off my life by forcing me to punch solid objects and chain smoke in frustration. Listen we all know this team has been relatively resilient in recent months, but you can't be too resilient when your closer is Luis Ayala---who in a former life was just about the worst reliever on the Mets' local AAA affiliate here in our nation's capital. Thanks a lot Billy Wagner, I hoped you've pitched your last game on earth and die in a hunting accident you redneck turd. This shit is just too eerily reminiscent of last year. And fuck peanut's Brewers for completely shitting the bed all weekend.

So do I go to the games this week? I can't go tonight, but should I show up for a tired Pelfrey tomorrow, or should I see whatever junk they throw out on Wednesday (Brandon Knight?)? I know the bullpen will lose on Thursday cuz Santana's pitching. And let's not forget the Nats put up 18 runs on the Mets in 2 games last week. Fuckity fuck. I guess I need to go to a couple just so I can see Elijah Dukes commit the first on-field homicide in baseball history (please let it be Castillo).

Ouchies! I stubb my toe, no can play football!

Show your face you visor wearing pussy! If you're gonna be hurt make it a torn ACL or a malignant tumor, not a toe injury. Fuck, I know a Lebanese kid who played half a soccer season for Xavier with a broken toe. He had to run and KICK you dipshit. You are no longer able to use the name LT, because the real LT would play through the pain of a toe injury by completely numbing the area with a kilo of coke before plowing through 50 rails and raping three strippers. Then he would go out and break people's femurs for no good reason other than the fact that he was a violent maniac who wanted nothing more out of life than to break people's legs, do some coke, and rape strippers who looked like they were asking for it. And he wore dangly earrings just so guys would come up to him and make fun of him and then he would have an excuse to break their legs and rape their wives or girlfriends and if they were single he would punch their mothers in the throat and go do some coke and murder a tranny hooker. This is the second week in a row my team has fallen like 40 points short of their projected total, and those don't even take into account the 20 points I get from my defensive players. And while we're at it Maurice Jones-Drew can fuck himself too, because it's his fault the Jags O-line is fucked with injuries. 10 points from my 2 running backs?! Way to combine to be equal to Thomas Jones you fucks. And Ben Roethlisberger will you please stop throwing to that Asian man in the red zone, didn't you get the memo that this is Santonio Holmes' breakout year? And Kitna, your team wears blue and silver, do not throw it to people wearing colors different from your own.

State of the Mets August 4th

2008-08-04T18:47:00.004-04:00

Remember this dashing young fellow. His name is Kazuo Matsui, the man who the Mets let play shortstop while forcing Jose Reyes over to second base. He also has a sweet semi-orange Oriento-mullet. He enjoys sushi, watching old American westerns, and raping children (note: these things may or may not be true). You may remember him as the man who hit a homerun in his first at-bat three seasons in a row from 2004-2006 (including an inside-the-parker). You may also remember him as being the Japanese guy who sucked at baseball so bad and got booed so mercilessly that we fondly looked back on the abortions that were Tsuyoshi Shinjo and Masato Yoshi. And he also just fucking killed the Mets during a three game series in Houston, including a ridiculous bomb. Speaking of which, let's take a look at how the Mets fared last week (I may make this a regular feature every Sunday night, but I only rarely blog anymore so who knows):

Record: 1-5; 1-2 at Marlins, 0-3 at Astros
Starting Place: 57-48, 1st place, 1 game ahead of Phillies, 2 games ahead of Marlins
Finishing Place: 58-53, 3rd place, 3 games behind Phillies, 1/2 game behind Marlins

Team Offense: .264/.322/.351, 19 runs scored. 45 men left on base.
Team Pitching: .291/.355/.518 (these are Avg/Obp/Slg against). 31 ER in 50.2 IP for a 5.51 ERA. 2.56 K:BB, 1.58 WHIP.

Best Player: Carlos Delgado with his .364/.400/.591 line, including the two-run homer that won the game against the Marlins. Reyes also hit .407 for the week, which is pretty good.

Worst Player: Well, Billy Wagner had a 9.00 ERA in a couple appearances, including a blown save against Houston. Heilman had a 13.50 ERA in 3 appearances (he got 2 losses this week), including a grand slam to Mark Loretta that lost that game. Joe Smith was not to be outdone with a 21.60 ERA in 1.2 IP over 4 games, including a loss against Florida. And yet this week the award goes to Mr. Scott Schoeneweis and his shiny 15.43 ERA in 3 appearances. Yea Smith was worse, but Schoeneweis has a track record of being a piece of shit scumbag asshole, and he gave up a bomb to a certain Asian fellow.

Most memorable game: The 10 inning loss at Houston that included a sick leaping catch by Danny Murphy in his MLB debut (and he doubled off the runner), then some little league movie bullshit where two Astros scored at the same time with Mark Lorretta trucking Castro with Hunter Pence sliding in behind him, and then a walk off sac fly where Tatis dove AFTER HE FUCKINNG ALREADY CAUGHT THE FUCKING BALL, allowing the guy to score from third.

Injuries: John Maine went on the DL with a sprained uterus, and Billy Wagner got an MRI today on his huntin' shoulder. Marlon Anderson also went on the DL with arthritis of the skeleton.

Conclusions: The Mets' bullpen sucks at pitching. These games were eerily reminiscent of every fucking game from last September, where the starters would come out after 5 or 6 with leads and the bullpen would blow it every time. Eddie Kunz, who was a closer on Oregon State like a year and ahalf ago when they won the College World Series was just called up and may immediately be our best reliever. Danny Murphy got called up and appears to have entered a platoon with Nick Evans in LF. This just plays into Omar's roster construction and player development technique: fill team with old shitty guys who bring "veteran leadership" and if they get hurt simply promote really young players before they are ready to advance in order to crush their confidence and lessen their value before trading them away for some more old players. Where is Valentino Pascucci?!!

Five Kekionga Losses in a Row Raise Calls for Lennon's Job

2008-08-01T17:54:00.007-04:00

Fort Wayne---Thursday July 13, 1871

The Kekiongas proved to be the lesser squad for the fifth consecutive contest, as the Red Stockings of Boston, Massachussetts prevailed on Wednesday afternoon, scoring 30 runs to only 9 for the Fort Wayne lads. Kekionga manager William Lennon of Calhoun St. spoke to this reporter after the game, expressing disappointment in his players lack of focus if not their effort. "Our boys played their hardest out there, but I think some of our interior fielders need to improve their focus while on the defensive side," said Lennon. Though he did not direct his critiques at an individual player, this reporter believes his verbal lashing was directed at shortstop Lil' Jimmy Hallinan whose 11 errors contributed to 19 unearned runs scored by the visiting squad.

Lennon stated his disapproval of the younger generation of players, whose inattention he believes is endemic and a sign of the times: "These young fellows really get in my graw on occasion," said Lennon. "In my day we did not have professional baseball matches or players. These men are being paid as well as tanners or smithies, and still we have defensive lapses every inning it seems. Focus? These boys don't know the meaning of the word. Do you think I lost focus at Second Bull Run? Hrrrmph!"

If focus was the order of the day out at Hamilton Field, then the competitor of the day was certainly Boston catcher Cal McVey. The young Iowan made only three errors behind the home base and led the Red Stockings' offensive attack with 9 hits (reaching base 13 times when considering four errors made on balls struck by McVey), along with 10 runs scored and 7 men driven home. Asked about his dandy of a match McVey's humble responses belied his farmboy roots. "Shucks," said Cal, "I was just seeing the ball real good today and trying to put it into play. It's easy to hit well when the other squad has nothing to stop the ball besides their bare hands."

First baseman Jim Foran repersented one the lone bright spots for the Kekionga, slugging a triple in six appearances at bat, and bringing home three men. However, Foran expressed disappointment in losing to the Stockings by 21 runs for the second time this season. "It's disappointing for certain. I really wanted to beat those gentlemen considering the rough treatment I received from their audience in Boston." Foran of course refers to the racial epithets shouted at him in Boston, where he was said to have heard names such as Black Dago, Cat-Eater, Dirty Mediterranean Immigrant Bastard and Grape-Smasher. The notoriously tough Boston fans had apparently learned prior to the contest that Foran had an Italian grandmother.

The focus (that word again) now turns to Lennon, whose apparent disgust with his squad raises the question of whether he is the right man to help develop a team full of young baseballers. Outer field player Harry Deane has expressed interest in the job and a team meeting is expected in the next week to determine the fate of their wizened leader.

The more important question for Fort Wayne's baseballers, though, may be the fate of the club itself. National Association baseball has undoubtedly gained a foothold in larger eastern metropoles such as New York, where the Mutuals have seen crowds as large as 6,000 spectators. The Kekiongas, on the other hand, have seen their attendance decline steadily from the start of the season. One spectator, a Mr. Wilford Hennings of the Hennings farm near Dunn Mill, put it thusly: "When a modest yeoman cannot bring his family on an evening pic-a-nic without these stick and ball men hurtling rawhide spheres at them, we live in dark times indeed. Sure I played some townball back in the 50s, but then I turned 9 and started helping with the harvest. I am perturbed by these paid townballies to say the least. We preserved the Union for this?"

A difficult question, but just one of several that must be answered by the Kekiongas in the coming weeks.

--Dee Trowe, Columnist, Fort Wayne Sentinel-Courier

Notes: Game time-2 hours, 20 minutes, called on account of darkness at 8:40 PM.

Attendance--135 or so.

Injuries--Jim Hallinan suffered two broken fingers in the first inning while fielding a sharply struck ball, which may have contributed to his later errors. Bobby Matthews complained of "dead arm" after the game, but says he will continue to pitch every inning of every game.

Congratulations Peanut

2008-07-06T19:57:00.004-04:00

Not that you care, because Brett Favre's looming un-retirement (what a douche) is probably more important to you, but congratulations to Peanut. Your Brewers just won the Wild Card with the trade for CC Sabathia. I got CC by 13 months over Prince Fielder in the who gets diabetes first sweepstakes.

In other news: The Mets lone all-star, Loudmouth McRedneck just blew a save against the Phillies after a 3 hour rain delay. And you know what, I'm not going to watch extra innings. In fact, dtro is on a mission to ignore the Mets all week. Fuck their mediocrity, I shouldn't get so emotionally invested in what a bunch of rich assholes are doing. Maybe I'll watch the Rays or something.

Ask a Celebrity: Today's Hot Sports Topic

2008-06-25T22:46:00.003-04:00

Baseball tonight just did a long segment about the dangers of maple bats. Are they dangerous? Should MLB ban them? Could they wind up killing somebody? Let's ask our old friend Don Imus:

Imus: Are they black?

Indiana Jones and the Aliens of Stonehenge

2008-06-24T21:33:00.011-04:00

Since I went on a two month hiatus it's time for a double dip of posting. The title of this post belongs to LCT, which is what he referred to the new Indiana Jone movie as we were walking out of the theater thoroughly disappointed. (Warning: this will completely spoil the entire movie)

Does this man look too old to be beating the shit out of big Russian dudes? Of course, he doesn't, but that is not even remotely the problem with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of the Aliens who Landed in Macchu Picchu in 1500 in Generic-Looking Flying Saucers and Were Made Out of Super-Magnetic Glass and Had Mind Control Powers and Bestowed upon Mankind the Gift of Irrigation and Plows and Love and Whose Secret Treasure Trove was Full of the Greatest Treasure of All, Namely Knowledge. I'm not sure if that's the full title, but let me reiterate: "THEIR TREASURE WAS KNOWLEDGE! KNOWLEDGE!!!"

Don't look in the eyes! Aaaaah!

I fucking loved Indiana Jones. That to me was the greatest trilogy of movies of all time. They definitely beat the shit out of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, in my opinion. Hell, between the ages of 7-11 I wanted to be an archaeologist. And now I just want to step on Stephen Spielberg's nutsack while wearing rugby boots. I have been hearing for years about a new Indiana Jones movie, and been patiently waiting as Spielberg and Lucas sifted through hundreds of scripts to find just the right one. And then they just said fuck it and did some stupid alien shit like they always do. As a stupid and entertaining summer movie, Crystal Skull is perfectly acceptable. But it is just so much worse than the other Indiana Jones movies. Allow me to explain:

Indy is no longer an archaeologist. He is now Colonel Henry Jones Jr. of the OSS and CIA and Justice League

Did I mention it's about aliens?

The aliens look exactly like aliens, i.e. exactly like what all aliens in every movie ever always look like. Their spaceships are flying saucers.

Soviets are a good foe. Except the super KGB task force with which Indy must do battle is led by a sword-wielding Cate Blanchett with a terrible accent. Not to be sexist, but a female villain just didn't do it for me.

Karen Allen (the one from Raiders of the Lost Ark) left her acting ability behind in the 80s somewhere...perhaps trying to find her former talent could have been Indiana's quest.

Shia LaBOOF plays Mutt Williams, Indy's greaser son. He is fine. Except at one point he swings through the Amazon on some vines a la Tarzan with a bunch of horrible-looking cgi monkeys and catches up to a speeding car. I'm all for action, even if it's a little bit dumb. But the action sequences were so over-the-top unbelievable in a way that makes the first three movies look like documentaries.

The "history" stuff was just kind of thrown in. Obviously, the first three movies were not real history, but you sort of got the sense that Indiana Jones' background in archaeology and history was important to the plot. The history stuff in this one was: oh yea there was some conquistador and then...aliens!!!

They threw so much random shit in there that half the dialogue seemed to be explaining exposition.

You remember how in Last Crusade there were those dudes with the triple cross tattoo thing trying to keep the grail a secret? And they were really noble and shit and when the guy dies it's pretty sad. There are people like that in this one, trying to keep the Crystal Skull stuff a secret, except they're all scary looking "natives" and are ruthlessly slaughtered by both Indiana Jones and the Russians without a hint of remorse. Something tells me that if Indiana Jones was looking for the lost Dead Sea Scroll and its location was guarded by a secret legion of Heebs, Spielberg might have thought twice about the way those characters were treated in the movie.

Steeevee! I can haz job pleez?

I hear they're already working on Indiana Jones and the Goblet of Montezuma---it's about dinosaurs.

I'm back! And the Mets still suck

2008-06-24T20:56:00.005-04:00

I have decided to make my return to redstripe and chonic due to the incessant clamoring of my reader(s). First off, I clearly have to talk about the Mets and this post is going to naturally be negative as they are fucking losing 10-0 to the motherfucking horrible Seattle Mariners. Let's actually clarify that a little more. Ollie gave up 5 er in 5 innings and 8 baserunners, and he's on my fantasy team and really can't suck now because Marcum and Zambrano (the one that I don't want to repeatedly punch in the throat) both went on the dl last week. Also, Gary Cohen just reminded me of something I read on metsgeek, which is that we are getting shut out by R.A. Dickey, a man who was born without his medialcollateralolioislal ligament. That's the ligament they fix/replace when they do Tommy John surgery and he doesn't even fucking have one. And the mets can't hit him of course...a team could come out with Dickey, Jim Abbot, Johnny Cancerboy Lester, the exhumed corpse of Mordecai "3-finger" Brown, and that kid Terry with one leg who almost made the Xavier freshman team and see how many times a cripple can strike out Delgado.

Anyway, let's get on to the now old news: the Mets fired Willie Randolph. As is the Mets wont, the Wilpons and the front office handled this with a complete lack of class, tact, or basic common sense. The Wilpons put the whole thing on Minaya, then repeatedly leaked things to the press hinting at Randolph's imminent demise in order to force Omar's hand. Then they made the man fly 3000 miles and fired him in the middle of the night after a win. Not that the win mattered, but really? You couldn't just fire him on Sunday and have started the road trip with Jerry Manuel? My problem is not that Willie got fired. He was not a good manager. But he was fired 9 months too fucking late, and at that point it just felt like a total distraction from the real problems of the team. The Mets have 5 good players that I can count: Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Santana, and Maine. Ollie is hit or miss, and Billy Wagner can suck a dick. Ok, so we'll call it 6 1/2 good players. Pelfrey may be added to the list at a later date. Willie Randolph did not sign those people. But Willie Randolph also did not refuse to find a solid backup plan for Alou or Delgado or Pedro. Willie Randolph did not pretend that the Milledge thing was a good idea just because Church played way over his head for two months. The fact that Ryan Church being hurt is such an enormous blow to the Mets lineup is retarded...and not Willie's fault. Willie Randolph did not ensure that Luis "Gimp" Castillo will be a Met in 2011.

Read my last sentence again. Look at the picture above. Now tell me who should be fired? Our biggest fucking hits this year have come from Fernando Tatis, Robinson Cancel, and Damion Easley. That is not a product of shrewd management and picking up overlooked guys. That is 3 lucky fucking hits from some of the washed-up schmucks with whom Omar Minaya has littered this Mets roster. Are you old (and preferrably Latino, though that's neither here nor there)? Were you once good like in the late 90s or somehow connected to the Expos organization? Are you out of work due to the fact that 29 teams have recognized your significantly diminished skills? Well come to the Mets! We have room for all of you! All of this means that the Wilpons fired the wrong guy. Or at least they fired one guy too few.

When LCT happily told me "thank god Pudge will not be the Tigers' catcher next year," I jokingly told him that he would be the Mets catcher... Except I don't know if I was joking.

Overreaction Update

2008-04-17T14:13:00.002-04:00

Bad boys bad boys! Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

It was self-defense pankey. Deny deny deny

Where's Waldo?

2008-04-16T01:39:00.004-04:00

Hey remember this guy? I had all the books and I remember my favorite was the one where Waldo traveled through time. He went to caveman days, ancient Rome, ancient China, medieval times, even (gasp) the future. However, I always felt there was one time period missing and it turns out I was right. See if you can find Waldo hiding in the early 90s:

Guess Who's Back?!!

2008-04-15T16:20:00.004-04:00

The man. The legend. Lastings Darnell Milledge!

I've missed my boy in the argyle sweater. He's off to a decent start--308/351/442 with only one jack. Captain redass can suck my balls, though. We'll see how the modern day Hank Aaron performs in his return to Shea and what kind of welcome the fans give him. Those fuckers out at the stadium better cheer him and then throw bottles at Omar's box, otherwise this fanbase has truly jumped the shark (booing Johan? BLASPHEMY!).

Well, actually, I hope Pelfrey shuts 'em down. And I get to watch this series on MASN! Sweet!

I wish I had known about this 9 years ago

2008-04-14T18:51:00.010-04:00

In 7th grade we had a science fair sort of. Actually, it was a "consumer fair" where we had to find a product and test out different brands to see which was the best. Then we had to make a huge posterboard to display the results and be prepared to present our findings to a panel of objective judges. I had no idea what to do and I didn't get in with a group fast enough, so I just copied another group and did steel wool pads. I had Brillo vs. SOS vs. some generic Key Food brand or something. And you know what? They were all the fucking same, but I had to come up with charts and graphs and shit to show some sort of difference (and my mom used to opportunity to get me to clean the oven). Anyway, it was all a huge waste of time, especially since the other steel wool group blew me out of the water with a superior posterboard. But today I realized what I should have done all those years ago---KNIVES!

That's Warhol you cultureless mooks

Inspired by #1 on this list from Cracked, I now realize I should have gotten my mom to shell out a few easy payments to the good folks at Miracle Blade and Ronco so I could test out knives. I could filet fish, cut hammers, throw random fruits in the air and try to slice them, throw the knives at Derek Jeter or Leonardo DiCaprio posters (my two most hated people in those days..fuck Titanic!). Either way we'd have some sweet knives at home, and coming up with the experiments would have been significantly more interesting than those for steel wool. Really, though, this is not the time to dwell on the past; what's done is done. But we can still look to the future, and what people of the current time need to know is: which knife is best? Should we trust creepy leatherface Ron Ronco and the impressed American audience, or boring ass Chef Tony and the snooty French onlookers? (Commercials are in 2 parts) You decide:

VS.

I think I got most of the ads in there. As anyone who knows me well can tell you, I am bound to be partial to Ronco because, simply put, I think that is the greatest bit of programming ever put on television. Any time I see that ad I drop what I'm doing and watch. But since I just found out about Miracle Blade, I'll be fair and lay out the pros and cons of our combatants so you can make an informed decision.

RONCO Pros:

Gets rid of unwanted in-laws (har har) w/ obscenely small sandwiches
Sharper than a samurai sword-BANSAI!
Comes w/ tons of stuff (600 steak knives! solid flavor injector!)
Cuts hammers, oranges
Cheaper than those motherfucking $900 Kraut knives, those Nazi schmucks

RONCO Cons:

You apparently have to tell all your friends about them, which Ronco will monitor with high-powered surveillance equipment
Personally delivered by Ron Popeil, who won't leave your house until you give him a fifth of scotch and listen to him talk about life back in the 19dicketies

MIRACLE BLADE Pros:

Can cut a pineapple....in MID FUCKING AIR
Accuhandle super powers---rock and chop, bitches
Perfection series presumably perfect
Cuts hammers, oranges, sheet rock
Works even for those with stiff hands
Seems to appeal to I-ties

MIRACLE BLADE Cons:

Fewer knives and accoutrement than Ronco
Chef Tony throws away everything he cuts; hey dickfuck, there are starving people in China and shit
Seems to appeal to I-ties

So who wins? You decide.

Lessons from overreactions throughout history

2008-04-09T21:56:00.012-04:00

Sometimes things happen. Then people react in violent or ridiculous ways. What can we learn from these things?8000 BC?
Action: People are sinning and shit.
Reaction: God fucking kills everyone with a huge flood.
Consequences: Noah builds an ark and saves all the animals; forced incest for repopulation of earth. Evan Almighty.
Lessons: Yahweh will fuck your shit up. Steve Carrell can't really carry a vehicle without hilarious supporting performances.

6000 BC
Action: The enslaved Israelites are shitting out kids left and right making Pharaoh nervous of their growing population.
Reaction: Instead of implementing a sensible family planning program like Communist China, Pharaoh decides to just drown all the male babies.
Consequences: Moses goes river rafting, talks to God, unleashes 10 plagues (including one that kills a bunch of Egyptian kids--karma, bitches) leads Jews out of Egypt, drowns army in Red Sea. Charlton Heston becomes a star despite being a crazy gun-nut with no acting ability.
Lessons: Don't go killing babies unless you're prepared to face the wrath of Yahweh. Charlton Heston was a dickfuck.

1776
Action: British put taxes on tea and stamps and shit.
Reaction: American colonists start revolution, beginning around Boston because they do not like taxes. Fucking Massholes.
Consequences: Long, drawn out war of attrition. Birth of America. Mel Gibson makes The Patriot, which was just as long as but much much worse than Braveheart.
Lessons: Stupid ass Americans go apeshit over taxes. We are better than English people. Mel Gibson needed to chill on the period pieces.

1914
Action: Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Reaction: Everyone goes to war over one dipshit.
Consequences: Like 14 million dead people or so; Soviets take over Russia.
Lessons: As George Washington warned us: avoid long-term or entangling alliances. Also, one dead guy is not worth a war. Except maybe Jose Reyes. I can't think of a WWI movie.

1941
Action: The Japanese crash a bunch of planes into ships at Pearl Harbor.
Reaction: US puts Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Drops nukes on Japan.
Consequences: Presumably, an earlier end to the Pacific war. Fucked up radioactive people. This Carlos Menstealia bit. That movie Pearl Harbor.
Lessons: Don't crash planes into our shit, because America will fuck your country up. Mind of Mencia is probably the worst thing ever to happen to comedy. Michae l Bay doesn't fucking know how to make movies despite huge budgets and tons of special effects.

2005
Action: Dtro and teammate lose beer pong game to a couple of girls.
Reaction: I punch a hole in the wall.
Consequences: Nothing really.
Lessons: Punching a wall is an acceptable way to vent anger and frustration. I take beer pong too seriously. I drink too much.

2008
Action: Some girl at work pours soda on Pankey.
Reaction: Pankey throws hot tea on her.
Consequences: Pankey is fired. Girl is not.
Lessons: You cannot pour hot liquids on girls, unless they ask you to or give you a look that tells you they want it.

Baseball is back...

2008-04-09T15:44:00.003-04:00

...and guess what? The Mets fucking suck. Well not totally, but they're 2-4 as of today and they already wasted a great start by Santana. And why do the Mets suck?

My short answer is the combination of the two men in the center of this picture. Willie Randolph is still a bad manager and Scott Schoeneweis (correct spelling) cannot get righties out. However, somebody neglected to tell Willie this fact, and so he let that fuck pitch to Rollins and Victorino who got hits and loaded the bases for Carlos "Ironhands" Delgado to make an error(Feliciano was in PR on family business, but I get the feeling Willie wouldn't have used him anyway). Fuckity fuck. That game yesterday (and thank god I can't watch them down here, b/c I would break my hand punching a fridge) was very reminiscent of last September. As I intimated in my reactions to the Santana trade this team's lineup is pretty weak after Beltran (not to mention Jose isn't getting on base so far) so we really need our pitching to step up. Pedro's hurt and Willie really likes Scho and Sosa, so we may be up shit creek here.

In other baseball news: LCT's and Pankey's team suck too. Worse than the Mets, so far. In a comment on my last post I made some cursory predictions for the MLB this year. I have decided to amend these, cop out style, with the benefit of a week+ of games. Here they go:

AL:
EAST-Red Sox---they are the best team in the AL still
CENTRAL-Indians--more complete than the Tigers, w/ the best 1-2 punch in baseball
WEST-Angels--the Mariners still suck in my opinion and the Angels are good enough, even with Lackey and Escobar hurt, to win this shit-ass division
WILD CARD-Tigers--I can't bring myself to pick the Yank$ and I assume these guys are gonna start hitting like motherfuckers
MVP-Manny Ramirez--he's off to a hot start and will get tons of RBIs on that team, barely edges out Miguel Cabrera (EDIT: and maybe ARod)
CY YOUNG-Fausto Carmona--he's my favorite pitcher in the AL; just fucking nasty
ROY-Fuck should I know?

NL:
EAST-Mets--I know I said they suck, but they're still good; I still like their rotation better than the Braves or Philthies
CENTRAL-Cubs--Sorry, peanut. They're better all-around than the Brewers with an adequate lineup and deepish rotation in a weak division
WEST-D'backs--Sorry, pankey. Webb and Haren plus all their young hitters improving makes them my favorite. This division is really tight except for the Giants. To me, the Rockies don't have the pitching, the Padres don't have the hitting, and the Dodgers will find too much time for Juan Pierre no matter what Torre says. (Addendum, Ned Coletti is really really stupid)
WILD CARD-Braves--I know, I know. How can I pick the Braves, when I can't bring myself to pick the Yank$? I hate to pick them, but they have a very good lineup and enough pitching to beat out the Phillies. The Brewers should put up a good fight until Ben Sheets ruptures his spleen in July, and the teams in the West are just gonna beat the shit out of each other.
MVP-David Wright--DWright will lock up his second in a row with another outstanding year...what? what's that you say? Jimmy Rollins won last year because his team won one more game despite Wright outplaying him in basically every facet of the game? Despite him being the 3rd or possibly 4th best hitter on his own team? Fuck that shit.
CY YOUNG-Johan Santana--I don't like to be too homerish or make wild predictions. But Johan will win 42 games with a 0.23 ERA and 400+ strikeouts. Roughly.
ROY-You ever get mad at a roofed-in stadium and don't know exactly how to express your anguish? Say it with me: FUK-U-DOME.

Up next: I feel like I should talk about the pregnant dude. Fucking creepy as shit.

Ireland Redux

2008-03-24T23:17:00.003-04:00

Happy belated St. Pat's loyal reader. In the spirit of that holiday I'm posting a video that one of the girls (Jessi) from my tour of Ireland made. Gives a sense of all the stuff we saw except the giant cock in Killarney. Luckily, she didn't record me doing karaoke in Annscaul (I told them to just put my name in and they made me do I'm Just a Girl).

Still not as bad as McGreevy

2008-03-12T17:57:00.009-04:00

Greetings, loyal reader. Back from Ireland (great time), have a terrible cold/jetlag, and don't want to be at school. I am contemplating just going home after class tomorrow and getting another week+ break (I would miss 5 classes total). Anyway, what's new in the world?

I iz grab you, tittyz

Eliot Spitzer, aka Client-9, aka new-age Elliot Ness, was caught fucking whores. That'll ruin your reputation. A lot of people are calling for Spitzer to resign because he kinda ruined his reputation as a muckraker by being caught involved in a prostitution ring. (edit: he resigned). Frankly, I think that's not enough. He should do a header off the Manhattan bridge a la Detective Markazian after he was arrested in a brothel (this is assuming Spitzer also has thousands of dollars in gambling debts).

Above: the escort, or dirty dirty whore, if you will, that Spitzer was banging.
Real name: Ashley Dupre.
Code name: Kristen.
Stats: 5'5", 110, 36-24-36, 22 yrs. old.
Mediterranean exoticness/appeal: check.
Cost: $4000 or so.

Above: Gov. Spitzer's wife of 20 years, mother of his 3 children.
Real name: Silda Wall Spitzer
Code name: Sexy Librarian
Stats: 50 yrs. old, 5'7", 130, 34-27-34.
Milfish: check.
Cost: 364 day wait and flowers on your anniversary.

Frankly, with the risk to his career and the money he's laying down, I think the result is clear: Eliot Spitzer is a douche.

ON A SIDE NOTE: Please take the time to vote 2008's name of the year tournament. Phyllis Mangina and Steeve Ho You Fat seem like strong contenders this year (and fuck Destiny Frankenstein). My personal favorites include Fonda Dicks and Poony Poon. Alas, they are matched against each other in the second round. Damn you God!!

Intrenational Bloggery

2008-03-01T12:16:00.004-05:00

Greetings loyal reader. Dtro joins you today from Dublin, the first stop on a 10 day jaunt around Ireland. Some quick thoughts:

It rains a lot here. Fuck that shit
Irish bars at home pretty much have the look right for pubs. They all look the same, with black paint and gold lettering, or something like that.
I'm too cheap to buy a bus pass and am tired from walking.
A pack of cigarettes cost 7.45 fucking euros. To put that in perspective: that is about $612.
In general, shit is pretty expensive and I am pretty broke.
Guinness is a little thicker and sweeter. Superior to the stuff in America, but not by so much that people from here should look on us with disdain.
William Butler Yeats looks like my grandfather.
According to my sister: men with Irish accents sound gay.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll post some more thoughts later in the week.

Before he got that job working under Steinbrenner

2008-02-25T20:06:00.001-05:00

Kinda wish I could remember the 80s.

Happy Valentine's Day Suckers

2008-02-14T16:21:00.003-05:00

To all of you stupid motherfuckers buying into this corporate-created Hallmark excuse for a holiday, I say hahahaha...you stupid shits. I don't gotta buy shit for anyone, because girls don't like to date me. So ha.

In the News: some badass Thomas Crown shit

2008-02-11T15:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, three dudes walked into some museum in Zurich and made off with paintings by Van

Gogh, Degas, Monet, and Cezanne.

All told this shit is worth $163 Million. Holy fuck! That's like stealing the Oakland A's or some shit. I salute you random Swiss robbers on being crazy awesome, but where do you fence this stuff?

In other news:

Amy Winehouse and Kanye won a bunch of grammies, but Herbie Hancock prevented them from winning album of the year. Herbie is best known as one of the co-signers of the Declaration of Independence (according to Tommy Boy). I salute you Herbie, for preventing Kanyegomaniac and that crazy slut from winning something.

My man Obama is gaining on Hilary Clinton in terms of delegates. I salute you America, for possibly having the fortitude to elect a black man president because, frankly, that's way better than a dyke president.

Hines Ward visited a zoo. Hilarity ensued.

The Week in Sports

2008-02-08T14:42:00.000-05:00

We're gonna do this 'rithmetic style

Aaaah! Iz colder than Green Bay!

I iz good GM now please?

I iz in big big twubble

And it all = one of the best sports weeks in recent memory. I put up a Giants pic of the Super Bowl for Boyce's sake, but it's not really about the Giants winning so much as it is the Patriots losing that feels so good. Let's make fun of them and their fans as much as possible while it lasts.

An Open Letter to the Hipsters set to Invade Windsor Terrace

2008-02-07T23:32:00.001-05:00

Dear Sirs and Madams,

Please stay away from my neighborhood. We do not want your type coming in and opening your stupid fucking coffee shops.

Lonelyville? Crossroads Cafe? (Yea, I know I came in to Crossroads that one time I was high as shit, but that muffin still sucked and only served to increase my dry-mouth). We don't need any fucking cafes in Windsor Terrace. We don't need overpriced coffee and chai tea or fucking clif bars and soy muffins, ok. We don't want a place with wi-fi where we can work on our novels about alienation and childhood trauma centered around that sort of quirky and weird yet strangely cute girl we had a crush on in our white, suburban high school. I'll get my fucking coffee and a bacon egg and cheese from Adam's or Terrace bagels (even Blondie's in a pinch). Got it motherfuckers?

That's what I want my coffee in, dicks. And another thing---I want fucking bud, bud light, and guinness at the fucking bar. All a bar has is bud? That's fine, Farrell's. I don't want no fucking PBR and High Life as my main source of drunkenness, so don't even try and open a satellite bar, Last Exit. I appreciate your trivia night, but keep your fucking Sierra Nevada the fuck away from the area between the park and the cemetery. We got R&B, we're set.

Don't even bring that shit in here. I know you're getting priced out of Manhattan and Cobble Hill and Park Slope, but just fucking go away. Jeans and a t-shirt is cool, but why are your jeans so tight and who the fuck is Che Guevara? Don't wear that queer ass shirt. Why does your friend's t-shirt have a picture of a hungry, hungry hippo? It's not ironic!!! And tell that girl with the square-framed glasses to take off that F train shirt for chrissakes. Your sweater is too small and your blazer is too plaid, so just stop it.

And take off that fucking trucker hat too, you cumstain. The fuckin Peaches, Fizznuts, Eels, Ataris, Taco Sauces and all the rest are not fucking better than my music. The White Stripes and the Strokes got some play on MTV, but you're fucking hip and counterculture so fuck them now, right? Juno was not good...at all. And if Diablo Cody gets a fucking Oscar then I should get one for my upcoming screenplay: How Godzilla Saved the Mets.

And fuck that pie shop too. It was good, but fuckin $4.50 for a shepherd's pie the size of my palm ain't doing it you queer aussie shitbricks. But back to my point dear hipsters. Please just skip over this neighborhood. I know you want to find somewhere kinda cheap in Brooklyn so you don't have to go back to the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, but please just try and cram some more into Williamsburg. They have Asian-fusion restaurants and everything! You'll like it over there, I promise.

Listen, I know accents and talking to your neighbors scare you, so just do yourselves a favor and ignore the F line past 7th Avenue. It will be better for everyone that way.

Sincerely,

Dtro

P.S. Fucking cunts

P.P.S. This goes for you older hipsters trying to start families too. You better have the money to send your sons Coltrane and Jimi (it's like Hendrix, isn't that cute?!) to Berkeley Carroll. Cuz Mikey and Jimmy at Holy Name will make them bite the fucking curb.

Bring The Muthafuckin' Ruckus

2008-02-06T17:43:00.000-05:00

Today's news of the Miami Heat engaging in trade negotiations with the Phoenix Suns made me scratch my head and wonder if the Heat were going to trade away D Wade and just say fuck it for the next 10 years. Seeing as how D wade is the only worthwhile player on the Miami roster. Then I heard that the Suns were looking to trade away Shawn (ugliest-shot-in-the-league-but-i'll-make-it-rain-on-your-ass) Marion for the husk of a man that is now Shaquille O'Neal.
I say Bring The Muthafuckin Ruckus Steve Kerr. Do you watch basketball anymore? Shaq is having his worst statistical year ever and has been consumed by injuries. Shawn Marion is guaranteed to add points and not only that; he can actually run the floor at the speed at which the Suns play. Now I admit that I haven't been the biggest Shaq fan since he left the Lakers and I acknowledge that it was Kobe's fault for him leaving. With all of that said, Shaq is no longer the man of steel. I take that back, he runs like he did in that movie Steel when he had that ridiculous bullet-proof suit on.

So please Steve Kerr, trade away Marion for Shaq. Almost immediately it will be shown that the suns will be worse than the Spurs, the Lakers, The Nuggets (Camby is better than Shaq) etc. That is fine with me because there are two things that i despise; the Phoenix Suns and Canadians.

Tuesday Morning Dickfuck

2008-02-05T14:52:00.000-05:00

Now I don't want to turn this site solely into a bashfest of the World Wide Leader. Nor do I want it simply to be a venue of nitpickery based on logic and stats like FJM (which it won't be, as logic does not enter into my arguments). However, I can't reserve my vitriol solely for the sports guy, because though he is homerish and stupid and annoying, he cannot ever rise to the level of phony-elitist asshattery that is represented by Gregg Easterbrook. Gregggggg has consistently bashed the Pats this year, which is fine by me, but his writing is so high-handed, preachy, and squirrelly that I cannot help but loathe him.

Now one could just say, "Congratulations to the 72 Dolphins. Pop those corks now, because you are still the only undefeated team in NFL history." Or you could take several thousand words to say the same thing:

"In other NFL news, at 10:06 p.m. ET on Sunday, as the Patriots left the field in Glendale, Ariz., mumbling '#@%*!' under their breaths, corks popped. In one of the sweetest traditions in sports lore, on opening day of every NFL season, each surviving member of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the sole perfect team in modern pro football history, sets aside a bottle of champagne to cool. And it's genuine champagne from the French province of Champagne, not the boysenberry-infused sparkling-Gewurztraminer wine-like substance that passes for bubbly these days. At the moment the stadium clock hits all-naughts for the vanquishing of the season's last undefeated team, the 1972 Dolphins pull the corks, secure in the knowledge that they will reign as the sole perfect team for at least one more year. Gentlemen of 1972, enjoy your annual draught. TMQ feels confident you will continue to sip champagne each season until you are called to meet the football gods, and greeted by song and feasting."

Wow, you sir, are a dickfuck. "Golly gee, you just can't seem to get good bubbly these days! All-naughts! You see what I did there? Not Zeros...naughts! In case you plebeians didn't know, draughts is a longer word for drinks. Maybe I should've said quaff, though. I am so smart sometimes I do crosswords in Esperanto while blindfolded."

Though they are the only undefeated team ever, I am pretty sure the 72 Dolphins are nowhere near the best team in history. Some of those Montana-Niners teams come to mind. The mid-90s Cowboys. The 70s Steelers. The 85 Bears. The 07 Patriots. Those teams are all better, but at least the Dolphins got real champagne. I guess it's nice for seniors to have something to occupy their mind while scaring kids off their lawns.

Goddamn whippersnappers!

Apologies...not

2008-02-04T13:43:00.000-05:00

While I was breaking down whom to root for on the eve of the conference championship games a couple weeks ago, I subtly hinted that Patriots fans might be a little racist in their leanings (because they fucking are):

Fans: (must control rage) Many people know about my disdain for Bostonians and supporters of teams from that area. I'm pretty sure 99% of Pats fans have Welker jerseys to just 1% owning Moss jerseys--take that how you will.

Well, that was a cheap and unfounded shot. To all you Pats fans out there, I just want to say sorr...wait, what? what's that? Bill Simmons, what do you have to say in your queer elegic wrap-up of SB XLII?

5. Much like the Patriots, I choked heading into the weekend: Somehow, I forgot to pack my good-luck Wes Welker jersey and headed to Sunday's game without any Pats gear. Originally intent on buying a Pats hat at the game, once I saw all the jerseys in the stands and in my section, I made the executive decision to fine myself $85 dollars (the price of a white No. 81 Moss jersey at one of those merchandise booths). You can currently find that jersey sitting at the bottom of the garbage can in my hotel room. I might take it home and burn it. I haven't decided yet.

Eat a dick, Pats fans. Eat a dick.

SB XLII in a nutshell

2008-02-04T00:42:00.000-05:00

More commentary when I'm not half dead.

The Universe is Righteous Afterall

2008-02-03T22:03:00.001-05:00

Here I am watching the New York Football Giants bathe in confetti following the greatest football game I myself have watched. And I am once again reminded that the universe is righteous and fair after-all. So let me take the time to say thank you to Jesus, Allah, Shiva, Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard and any other major religious deities I may have missed. I am now happy the Patriots won all those game this season because they lost the most important one of them all. This game could have only been better if Eli Manning had guaranteed a win just like Broadway Joe Namath, but I'll settle for Bill Belichick crying himself to sleep while crunched in the fetal position.

This game is also monumental because is disproves one of LCT's biggest conspiracy theories that the NFL has been rigging Superbowls for the past several years. Sorry Chuck but I'm sure one of your other conspiracy theories will come to fruition. Oh and to all of you New England fans out there who feel cheated or that the pats deserved this win. Fuck off you bunch of gold bricker-bush league-clam chowder eating-douchebags. You're lucky to have that world series from this year (the 10 day layoff killed the rockies) and now with the lakers adding Pau Gasol to their roster, they will surely serve up the Boston 3-party if they meet in the finals.
So yes the Universe is righteous (mind that when I say this I am not considering the prevalence of poverty, famine, war, disease, human trafficking, and the Hollywood writer's strike) But football is still clean. At least until George Mitchell starts an inquiry into performance enhancing drug use in the NFL.

Johan is a Met...

2008-02-01T20:20:00.000-05:00

...fuck...yes!

Well, the terms of the deal are still foggy at this point. It looks like a 6 year extension at about $22 mil per year, on top of this year (with a 7 mil boost this year). All told that's seven years of Johan, and that's alright by me.

The more I think about this trade, the more I like it. For most of the offseason I was kind of against a trade for him, because it would essentially be gutting our farm system for the right to pay Santana $150 million. Now that it's done, and the Mets held on to F-Mart and Pelfrey, it really looks awesome. This 08 mets team has a great rotation, should have enough arms to put together a solid bullpen, and if MLB will let us use a three-man lineup (i.e. bat Reyes, Wright, and Beltran over and over again) we should be able to score enough runs.

"If I play my cards right, I can get siete platanos and a pot of sancocho for that young man"

Hey, Omar! Fuck your...er...eh, I'll let him off for a little while. I don't think Omar Minaya is a very good general manager, but his ability to make this Santana deal at least proves to me that he is not completely and utterly useless. He still made one really, really bad trade and signed Luis "the Gimp" Castillo to a 4-year deal. This team has some flaws at 2nd (although Gimp's decent OBP should save him this year), Catcher (fucking plumber), RF (Jew-hater) especially when lefties are pitching, and LF (b/c Old-Man Alou is guaranteed to break a hip at some point). Delgado better return to 06 form, and Jose can't shit the bed at the end of the season again. All that said, I like the Mets chances this year.

At least Omar got rid of most of the young guys in the organization, so Professor Willie won't get too confused.

Where's Mota?

Joe Buck: "Mets, Diamondbacks. Santana, Haren. Martinez, Webb. It's the NLCS, next on Fox."

FUCK THE YANKEES

2008-01-30T00:09:00.001-05:00

We got the good Santana.

Holy Fucking Shit!!!!

2008-01-29T18:03:00.000-05:00

Johan is a Met!

Goodbye to Phil Humber, Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, and Kevin Mulvey. I hope you all amount to nothing (sort of).

I'm a little torn, but generally pretty fucking excited about the 08 Mets.

Johan
Pedro
Ollie
Maine
El Duque/Pelfrey

That looks pretty good to me.

I Will have a more in-depth post about this later, and hopefully so will Boyce.

State of the Union

2008-01-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

"Good evening, my fellow Americans, heh heh" (smirks)
(Standing Ovation...Dennis Kucinich pretends to blow his brains out with his hand in the shape of a gun)

"I'm here today to talk about the state of the union. We have come very far as a nation over the past 7 years, heh heh." (Standing Ovation...Obama sparks a L, rolls out)

"But we still face many challenges in the year to come. Our economy is strugglin', don't noone have healthcare coverage, Congress blocked my idea to have Haliburton buy Social Security, poor Roger Clemens is being attacked by jealous Texas-haters...these are not easy times to be an American. But I believe that our nation can unite to tackle these challenges as a united unity." (Standing ovation...Cheney looks flabbergasted, mutters profanities under his breath)

"Really though, I'm not hear to talk about America. I want to talk about Operation Eye-Racki Freedom, heh heh. Some Democrats have called for us to pull out our troops, but we ain't gonna do that. We will not stop the fight against terror, until the Soonis Shee-ites and Kurdis can all live in peace and harmony. Al-Qaeda! Unity! Terror! 9/11!" (Standing Ovation...live via satellite: Giuliani red-faced, mouthing "Hey that's my bit!")

"People were mad about my troop surge, but hey guess what crumbums? It's working, heh heh" (Smirks) "We sent like 2 million more troops this year, and only like 6 or 7 died. I think all the statisticulators out there can tell you that that is good, okay" (Standing Ovation from Republican side...Hilary stands up, but Nancy Pelosi grabs her and whispers in her ear. Hilary sits down, crosses arms, adjusts bulge)

"Not to get boggled down in the numbers, but we have lost what? Like 4,000 or something...brave men and women." (Standing Ovation) "Well the Eye-Rackis have lost like 45,000 people. You know what that means?" (Bobs head forward, smirks) "We're winning...like blowing them out!" (live via satellite: Rumsfeld pumps fist)

"Some people are calling this another Vietnam." (bulges eyes in mock disbelief) "But how bad was Vietnam really? C'mon, look at the positives of a pointless drawn out war. Vietnam gave us...cool new drugs, Rambo, hotass half-asian GI baby girls." (Smirks, John McCain nods knowingly)

"And so, we must as a nation come together to fight terror and have good security and stuff, ya know? They hate our way of LIFE!!" (Standing Ovation)

"Oh and you know...tax cuts, education, healthcare, economy, immigration, death to homos...Peace, I'm outta here!!" (Smirks, throws down mic, standing ovation)

First Things First....

2008-01-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

Well I'm glad that Dtro finally blessed me with the opportunity to contribute to the fine piece of internet wisdom that is Red Stripe and Chronic. With that said; let me clear a couple of things up. First off, it is true that baseball is my third favorite sport and Football is number 1. However i am also an avid basketball Fan. Which brings me to the first topic Ill speak on.
The Los Angeles Lakers are of course my favorite team because the nuggets have gargled balls since i was a a young tike. (I liked them before kobe and Shaq so fuck off) But recently I have noticed LA fans acting like ohhhh maybe knicks fans or New York fans in general. They actually booed Kwame Brown. Granted he has gotten as fat as the Michelin Man during his injury and missed two dunks and a wide open lay up (in 5 min) but the man was hand chosen by his Airness. I say he gets a pass. If people keep booing the mofo the lakers will sink further and further and really open the door for Boston to win the NBA Finals. Think about it, do you really want Boston to win the World Series, Superbowl, and NBA Finals? And if you have ever met a person with a Boston accent who talks shit you immediately want to remind them that the English language includes the letter "R" and for them to do a nose dive off the green monster. I say people stop booing Kwame and start trying to assassinate Kevin Garnett.

Some extra motivation, as if they need any

2008-01-27T02:41:00.000-05:00

You'd think the Giants were the ones that went 18-0. I can't count the number of analysts who have been "going out on a limb" and doing something "completely unexpected" by picking the Giants to win. It's even on the goddamn cover of Sports Illustrated, which is example enough. The only solace there is (thanks to the useless bye week) is that hopefully next week's cover will feature Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Junior Seau and Rodney Harrison sharing a bathroom stall ala McGwire and Canseco, Belichick in a bear suit, and an array of goats.

His name is Professor Snuggles and he's the BEST!

Tony Eason, he isn't.

700 Mg of Oxycontin, 37 sleeping pills, and a jigger of whiskey...

2008-01-23T01:26:00.000-05:00

...does not cure pneumonia.

If only someone had told Heath Ledger.

Guess the ugly girl from Dawson's Creek broke his heart.

RIP Heath.

NFL Playoffs

2008-01-17T13:03:00.000-05:00

Happy 2008 loyal reader! Ok, so your favorite football team has been eliminated from playoff contention and you are wondering who to root for in the final 4 (other than the team you gambled on). Well dtro is back and is willing to help you figure out how to make a decision by breaking down the combatants MLB playoff style. Admittedly I should have done this a couple weeks ago, but then I would have had to talk about the Buccaneers and their diminutive QB (that's QueerBoy) and nobody wants that. I come to you as an impartial Jets fan, with no (i.e. many) preconceived notions about the teams competing:

NFC

Team: The Giants are a team built on defense, highlighted by their aggressive pass rush, which is led by Johnny Gap-Tooth and Dirty Osi (for more on him look at Boyce's inaugural post). They give most of their carries to a failed linebacker in Brandon Jacobs, and apparently Eli Manning doesn't suck anymore. Him being a Manning is a strike against them, but Eli is kinda likable in a doofy and pathetic way (sorta like the special olympics). Jeremy Shockey has a broken leg, which immediately reduces how much one should hate this team.
Fans: Some of my best friends are Giants fans, so I'm probably biased. Suffice it to say that they are passionate people, but can't tailgate nearly as hard as Jets fans. J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS! Sorry about that.
History: Lost that Super Bowl to the Ravens a few years back (turns out there's a reason why white dudes aren't defensive backs...(cough) Sehorn (cough)). They won a couple Super Bowls under Bill Parcells in the late 80s/early 90s (Wide Right!). I can't go back any farther than that, but Phil Simms was the QB of those teams and when I listen to him talk for an extended period of time I begin to hear a loud buzzing noise and have violent seizures.

Team: The Packers are a young team with a strong defense (Atari Bigby is fucking sick), an emerging rushing game (Ryan Grant is from Notre Dame so he can just suck a dick), and a QB who makes Jesus look like fucking Hitler. Of course, everyone knows about reigning SI sportsman of the year and grizzled patriot/leader/messiah Brett Favre. Well fuck him and his fake retirement press conferences (I also have a theory about 38 yr. old QBs having career years and steroids, but we all know that only baseball players take steroids).
Fans: Packers fans are passionate and loyal, and include my roommate Peanut. They brave harsh weather conditions to watch their beloved Pack. They are part owners of their own team, which is cool. They also have a cult-like devotion to Favre and mass suicides are expected upon the announcement of his official retirement. Not cool.
History: They won the first 2 Super Bowls, but that's only because Joe Namath wasn't involved yet. Joe Namath would have thrown for 8 touchdowns against the Packers and then impregnated Bart Starr's wife, but I digress. Favre also won that Super Bowl against the Pats (before they had fans) and then lost the next year to Terrel Davis and the Broncos. Also Favre has the all-time record for Gunslings (and some other ones too, I guess).

AFC

Team: The Chargers, like the G-men, are a surprise entrant in this year's conference championship round. Best known among their stars is LaDainian Tomlinson, whom the media has decided is the best running back of all time (b/c his O-line has nothing to do with it) and is therefore deserving to steal the nickname "LT" from a truly great/psychopathic player. They are quarterbacked by Philip Rivers (ya better ask someboddddaaaaayyy!!), and their defense is led by roidface Merriman (still got lit up by Jones-Drew, bitch).
Fans: Who knows? I'm sure they have supporters, but I don't really believe in the fandom of Californians.
History: Mostly not good. They made it to one Super Bowl and got owned by Stevey "Brigham" Young. Of note to myself is the fact that K Nate Kaeding missed field goal after field goal in losing to the Jets in a wildcard game during the golden age of Herm Edwards. That's really all I got.

Team: Bill Belichick is the fucking anti-Christ, and no one can convince me otherwise. The Patriots are all a bunch of cheaters and rapists. Rodney Harrison did steroids, which everyone seems to forget (maybe he and Merriman can have a who-has-the-smallest-testicles contest at halftime). Tom Brady is a Michigan man, so I'm a little torn on him...actually, fuck that. Fuck Tom Brady right in his queer little chin-cleft. Wes Welker is a stupid fucking hick, with an extra 23rd chromosome (according to LCT). Randy Moss is the only guy I sorta like on this team due to his admitted potheadedness and he's widely loathed by most people.
Fans: (must control rage) Many people know about my disdain for Bostonians and supporters of teams from that area. I'm pretty sure 99% of Pats fans have Welker jerseys to just 1% owning Moss jerseys--take that how you will. I also genuinely believe that most Pats fans were unaware of/indifferent to the existence of this franchise pre-2001. Not to mention that fact that Bill Simmons currently has a column up on ESPN.com trying to decide who's better: the 86 Celtics or 07 Patriots....I do not have the stomach to click on this column and will not link it, but its mere existence ensures that if I ever were to run into the "Sports Guy," I would gladly take a machete to his genitals.
History: Bill Belichick and Tom Brady invented this team during the Tuck Rule game against the Raiders in January of 2002 and have had unparalleled success over the duration of the franchise' short history of 7 years. Drew Bledsoe never happened.

The true axis of evil

Conclusion: As a human being with any sense of decency I have to pull for the Giants and Chargers. I kinda want to see the Giants win the whole thing, so that Eli and Peyton will have the same number of rings, but that would mean Shockey gets a ring too. Hmmmm....I tentatively throw my support behind the Chargers (blech). Really, anyone but the Patriots.

J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!

OSI SHITS ON HOOKER TITS

2008-01-17T12:56:00.001-05:00

McNabb thought a sack and forced fumble was
the worst thing Osi Umenyiora was capable of doing to him

As a Giants fan, I still have a team to follow. As a regular follower of black celebrity gossip via mediatakeout.com I have become privy to the following information regarding our star defender (which has since been taken down, by haters) :

"We hooked up and he had an unusual request. He wanted to pee on me. I thought it was weird but I did so because he said he it would really turn him on and he would see me again if I did. After I did so in his bathroom he handled his business and asked me how I liked it. I said, "I don't know how I feel about it. It was kind of crazy." - Whore

But it gets much better!

"The next time I was with him he offered me 3 grand if I let him defecate on me and I said no. He told me to leave and so I did. The next time he asked and I did and I accepted the 3 grand. And it became a regular thing. He began flying me to Florida and Atlanta last summer paying my bills, giving me money for my kids as long as I let him well, "shit" on me." -Whore

Since his shit directly benefitted children, I see it as no less than a humanitarian act on par with anything George Clooney has ever done.

Shut the fuck up, Clooney............you fuckin' BITCH.