Picking up where I left off

The big winners this weekend, The Ohio State University. They were just handed the title this weekend when the BCS chose Florida over Michigan. The vastly overrated SEC got their league champion into the BCS championship game, and why? Because people decided that their teams were the best before the season started. The SEC was never forced to prove it on the field, they all scheduled cupcakes and the voters decided they were the best, the powerful SEC lobby wins again. Ohio State will breeze to a championship in January and the fans will lose. The best news this weekend is that there will be a great battle to prove who the real number 2 is out in Pasedena. Ohio State almost deserves to not be tested in a bowl game, they won the real national championship game back in Columbus on November 18th. Ohio State would probably lose to Michigan on a neutral field which is why their fans were so adamantly against Michigan's inclusion in a BCS championship. They know they were lucky to win by three at home after the dubious roughing the passer call late, and they didn;t have what it took to beat the Wolverines again. Anyway, congratulations to the Buckeye fans, you've stolen a second national title this decade.

So In the spirit of great athletic competitions, The Real World/Road Rules challenge continues to be my favorite reality show on television. The recent tilt between Wes and Derrick was one for the ages, afterward Derrick had a quote about re-assesing his life, unfortunately I doubt that he meant he wanted to move on from being a reality TV star who in many ways is living the life of a low paid professional athlete. While it's almost impossible for me to sit through an entire episode of the Real World, The Challenge always has just enough of a blend of game show and platform for these people to grab attention and try to increase their own celebrity that I'm sold every season.

The other night I was flipping through the channels and I came across one of the greatest made for TV movies of all-time. The Jacksons: An American Dream, it has the most amazing blend of awful writing, awful acting and yet there are great moments and great actors blended in there. The soundtrack, as you would assume is phenomenal. Great tunes from michael and the Jackson 5, it takes us from ABC to Billie Jean. This film actually has two oscar nominated actors in the cast, when was the last time a made for TV movie had such credentials? Perhaps never? That's what I thought. So after getting over the shock of seeing Terrence Howard and Angela Bassett in a movie where some of the dialogue made me laugh out-loud despite it coming in one of the most dramatic scenes, then you get to enjoy seeing people who thought might have been dead. Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs plays Joe Jackson, you may recognize him as Freddy "Boom Boom" Wahsington from Welcome Back Kotter. The best scenes in the movie feature Lando Calrisian himself, Billy Dee Williams playing the great Barry Gordy. Williams interacting with a guy doing his best Michael Jackson impersonation is pure genius, and I can't confirm this but I'm pretty sure Barry offered little Michael an ice cold Colt 45. Anyway, I can only gush so much about this brilliant piece of art, do yourself a favor and go rent it on DVD, you'll thank me later.

Onto a little baseball, The Sox will probably announce the JD Drew signing today, and he'll probably do well so long as he's healthy but he'll miss at least 5 games this year for a hangnail, and then he'll 10 more for a strain, then he'll be out a month with a slightly sprained ankle. But I'm done taling about Drew. I'm here to point out how brilliant the Yankee trade for Bobby Abreu is turning out to be. A lot of people looked at Abreu's bloated contract and thought that Yanks were idiots to trade for him. But now when you see that JD Drew is costin the sox 14 million, you can't help but say that Abreu deserves 17 mil. If both are healthy they're probably comparable talents but Abreu plays a lot more and he already helped the Yankees make the playoffs once. I don;t know exactly how good the top draft pick will be for the Phillies one day, but it doesn't seem like a bad price to pay.

One last thing, I heard Dick Vitale refer to Greg Oden as the best big man to play college basketball in the past 30 years. Dick you're making a mockery of yourself. Not only is there no way that Oden has proven himself to better than some of the recent bigs to come through college, but there is no way, that as a freshman Oden is already better Ewing or Duncan or Olajuwon were as seniors, or as dominating as Shaq was as a junior.

On another college basketball note, I think that as far as shot-blocking goes (and I'm talking strictly shot blocking, not any other aspect of the game) Sean Williams from BC is the best shot-blocker in college basketball.

That's it for now, maybe I'll pull myself together enough to actually talk about NBA basketball soon, and maybe I'll lay out my brilliant plan for a succesful minor league football organization.

-Bender Out