Dammit All

I can't believe it happened to us again! It's like ten years ago all over again. They trick us into sitting through an atrocious season with the promise of riches at the end of the rainbow, but in the end there is no pot of gold. All my dreams of Greg Oden gone in a flash. Well not really a flash, they managed to prolong my pain for a whole half hour, milking a quick two minutes of lottery results into an entire program which ended in pain. I've been pining for Oden for more than a year now, but in the last month had worked to the point where I was willing to settle for Kevin Durant. Now all we are getting is the scraps. Not only do we not get one of the big two but we don;t even get our first choice of the leftovers. I can't even really accept it yet, it's not quite the level of pain that I felt when the Pats lost to the Colts but I do have the same feeling that I can;t believe the dream is over. It seemed like our destiny, but in the end it was not to be. So what now?

I think you could make a strong case for the Celtics being the worst franchise in the NBA in the last fourteen years, (more specifically, the time since Reggie Lewis' death.) The fact that there is even such a thing a Celtics fan base is simply a testament to how great there were before the '90s. There have been four times where it was actually possible to be a Celtics fan after the Lewis tragedy. The best time being their run in 2003 when they made it to the Eastern conference finals and they were only minutes away from going up 3-1 over the Nets before the refs took over the game with some dubious offensive foul calls. The second best time for Celtics fans was Antoine Walker's brief comeback in 2005 when he helped Paul Peirce to the Atlantic division crown. Aside from those two "high points" the best times for Celtics fans have been the runs they made at the number one pick in '97 and now in '07. It's a sad state of affairs when the Duncan and Oden sweepstakes pass for two of the more exciting times in recent history. So as a loyal Celtics fan, I beg them, do it right this time. No more trading for veterans who can lead them to the upper end of mediocrity. Be patient with your young players, let them develop before you trade them for quarters on the dollar. Don;t trade this draft pick for a mid-level veteran, look at the big picture and make becoming a contender your actual goal. If there's anything worse than watching your team become a laughing stock, it's being a laughing stock when the league has players like Chauncey Billups, Joe Johnson and Brandon Roy who should be Celtics but the management lost in short-sighted deals.

After wiping away my many tears, I've decided that the Celtics need to to draft Yi Jianlian. I saw some video of him working out and he looks like a tremendously athletic 7-footer. When I was watching the video my exact thoughts were, "It's two bad we don;t have a second lottery pick this year so we could take Yi along with Oden." Well now he is my prime target. Of course, given the way things have gone the last few years, he'll be drafted in the third or fourth slots. I was also thinking how great it would be to have a pick in the twenties, they could take a flyer on my favorite project, Sean Williams, but sadly the Celtics traded their second pick in the disastrous draft night last June. Anyway, for now I'm gonna stand by my C's, but if they trade this pick for a crappy veteran, I'm really close to giving up on them as it is. The organization has been very shaky for a long time. I don;t trust Danny Ainge to do anything besides drafting. I don;t trust Doc Rivers to do anything aside from losing to get more ping pong balls, and I don;t trust the owners to understand anything about the game of basketball. One last thing I had to mention, everyone has been saying the Celtics tanked this year, and they tanked back in 97. No team tanked more obviously that year than the San Antonio Spurs. David Robinson sat out the last quarter of that season despite being healthy, yet somehow, no one ever calls them out, they tanked their way to a dynasty, but somehow the Celtics are the bad guys.

On the subject of Tim Duncan, is it possible that he is actually underrated? Very few people refer to him as the best player in the NBA. You hear a lot of Kobe or Dirk and you used to hear about KG, but Duncan is my choice, and I don;t even think it's that close. He carries his team to the upper echelon every year. In my mind Parker and Ginobili would just be average players on a different team, but because they play with Duncan and in that Spurs system, they're mistakenly thought of as all-stars. He just wills this Spurs team to greatness, and I can;t imagine them not winning the title this year.

One final sports note to cheer me up, and any other Boston fan. The Sox won tonight to go back up by 10.5 over the Yanks, which is of course very sweet, but the sweetest thing is tomorrow night Schilling will probably plunk the lip-gloss wearing A-Roid for his shoulder block into Dustin Pedroia tonight in the 8th inning. As if I needed any added reason to watch a Sox-Yanks game, tomorrows could be a little more fun than usual. Don;t forget to duck Alex.

That's all I've got for now, I'll be back soon with some entertainment thoughts, 'til then...

-Bender Out

Hell hath no fury...

Why hath the Idol voters done this to me? How can you eliminate themost talented singer in Idol history to keep Blake Lewis on the show? I actually kinda understand why she didn't win. she didn;t really have that factor that makes people vote for her in this competition. She doesn;t have that feel of an undiscovered talent. She's almost like a ringer who was already singing professionally but just needed this competition for the publicity. All that being said, she was miles ahead of the competition here. Maybe someday Jordin Sparks will be able to hold a candle to her and even evebntually surpass her talent-wise, but for right now Melinda was the obvious class of the competition. And I'll admit that it drove me a little crazy the way she seemed surprised everytime the judges complimented her. In the interest of full disclosure, about half way through the season I theorized that these reactions were indicitive of some sort of mental deficiency, but that turned out to be wrong, Paula is still the only mentally disabled person involved with the show. I know it's silly to get even the least bit upset over her getting the boot from the show, the losers on the show have gone on to at least equal the success of the winners, and finishing third will probably allow Melinda to have more control over the music she puts out and hopefully that will result in better music. As for the two remaining contestants, well somewhere Ruben and Justin and Fantasia are all a little happier today. Justin will no longer have to be thought of as the runaway worst finalist ever. Blake Lewis can join him in the heirarchy of awful finalists and Fntasia and Ruben will probably stop having to worry about being the worst contestants to ever win, especially if Blake somehow wins this whole thing. I'm just gonna root for Jordin and hope that her debut album sounds better than the crap by Katherine McPhee that is on the radio these days. If Blake wins, well then we'll probably have to hear lots of crappy music from him, it's really inevitable either way. He'll put out a generic album that is completely derivitive of JT, Maroon 5, and 311, plus he'll throw in a few raps/beatbox moments that only Aaron Carter will be able to appreciate. I'm still gonna watch the finale, maybe I'll DVR it if it's on at the same time as Lost. I just can't pass up the opportunity to watch Paula get that giddy smile while she claps like a seal and a little drool comes out of the side of her mouth, I just wish she was giddy over Melinda.

Some other entertainment news I picked up this week, NBC announced its fall schedule. The great news is that Friday Night Lights was renewed. Of all the dramas on TV, this is the best one that keeps itself in the realm of reality. That is to say it's my third favorite behind Lost and Heroes. I really appreciated the drama on this show, maybe some of the plots were too fantastic, that is to say there were too many things going on in one town or two many games that would qualify as the greatest high school football game ever played, but I was sucked in from the first episode, and I would have been a little sad if they didn;t give it a second season despite the fact that it didn't get great ratings. The other big news out of there was a mixed bag. Studio 60 on the sunset strip was cancelled. I was as excited as anyone when they first announced this show going on the air, it would show the inner workings of a Satruday Night Live type show. To me it sounded like a can't miss idea, but then when I started to watch the show I could feel that something wasn;t right. The things they were writing for the fictitious SNL type show just weren't funny. I understood why they had the central romance between Matthew Perry and that Blonde, every drama needs a central romance I guess, it didn't really interest me but I could live with it. I guess the other thing that put me off about the show was the way all of the characters seemed to take their craft so damn seriously. My worst nightmare is to think that somewhere Will Ferrell is thinking of himself as an artist and social commentator as opposed to just being a great comedian, and most of the characters on this show thought of themselves as the former. I could have done without the episode where Nathan Corddry's character tried to validate himself to his parents, and he ranted about how they did comedic sketches not "skits." There were some good episodes of course, the one where Mark McKinney came in and showed the two young writers how to write for the show was a personal favorite of mine, but in the end I'm just gonna remember this as a show that could've been great but instead missed the boat. I don;t blame NBC for cancelling it, my guess was that the show was very expensive to put on and unless you have a great show to build your network around you have to cancel it, you can;t just keep on "good" shows that lose you a lot of money.

On a final note, it seems that Jenna Fischer, Pam from The Office, gopt hurt pretty badly at a party celebrating their season finale. She had a little too much to drink and fell down some stairs fracturing her back in four places. It apparently sounds a lot worse than it is, when you hear someone fractuared their back you worry about them not being able to walk or things like that. She's gonna be fine to shoot the show next season which will apparently be an etended 30 episode run next year, so I just wanted to wish her a speedy recovery. It wouldn't be The Office without some nice roast Pam and a side of Pams.

Anyway, that's all for now.

-Bender Out

Getting Testy

The Spurs-Suns series has been extra heated even by playoff standards. It first escalated when Amare Stoudemire called out Bruce Bowen for being dirty, along with the rest of the team. He's far from the first to claim this about Bowen, but it takes balls to call out Bowen when Raja Bell is on your team. Raja is quite a chippy player himself and delivered that ridiculous clothesline to Kobe last year, (although some Police officers still think his greatest cheap shot came inside a Boston University dormitory.) The suns have also distinguished themselves by doing the unthinkable, they've been able to out-flop and out-whine the Spurs in the first four games, which takes some real doing. So with that as a backdrop, we get the infamous nut shot where Bowen supposedly kneed Steve Nash in the beans and somehow he was assessed a flagrant foul, (I'm still convinced that Nash flopped, either that or Bowen is the most skilled cheap shot artist ever.) If Nash doesn;t fall to the ground wailing, the refs wouldn't have called anything and you could even make the case that Nash was the culprit for rushing Bowen too aggressively. And now the latest chapter, Robert Horry, who at this point has confirmed his status as nut job and a bit of an A-hole to boot, delivers a ridiculous forearm shiver to Steve Nash sending little Steve crashing hard into the scorer's table. If there's any justice, Horry will be suspended for game five, unfortunately, unless the NBA completely ignores its own rules, Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw will be outside the arena that night as well. Both Stoudemire and Diaw ran onto the court, there is indisputable video evidence of this, and no matter what Stoudemire claims about running to check in, it's BS. The rules have been in place for some time, if you leave the bench in that situation you get suspended, and guys have been suspended despite showing greater restraint. So for all the momentum Phoenix just gained, they'll be very hard pressed to continue it next game when they lose two men as opposed to the Spurs one for this ugly incident started by that nut job Horry.

A few other sports notes, Most people are calling this Spurs-Suns series the real championship, but I wouldn;t be surprised if Detroit beat either of them in Finals. It would break my heart if the Pistons won, especially if they were playing the Spurs because they've had tremendous luck with their acquisitions. Danny Ainge handed them the title with that ridiculous trade that helped Detroit acquire Rasheed Wallace, and now they might win because Chris Webber dogged it so bad in Philly that the Sixers just bought out his contract and made him a free Agent so he could run home to Detroit. The horseshoe had been firmly up their petard for a few years, even blowing the number two pick in one of the best drafts ever could derail them. Twice they've signed hobbled veterans who now look healthier than they have in years, that being Webber and former all-star power forward Antonio McDyess. They were able to integrate one of the most notorious head cases in Rasheed Wallace who has somehow matured to the point where he barely gets mentioned as a potential problem. The one thing I have enjoyed from the Pistons is their domination of the Bulls. After the Bulls beat Miami 4-0 they quickly became one of the more overrated teams in recent history. The Heat were old and slow, and their one young gun, Dwyane Wade was not himself because of the shoulder separation he suffered a couple months back. They beat a team who was ripe for the picking and all of a sudden they were the second best team in the east. Well the baby Bulls have been exposed, maybe they'll be ready to compete in a few years, but my guess is they'll have a new coach and a new starting center by then. I also want to tip my hat to Golden State who will be bowing out very shortly, they did more than we could ask for by creating a very exciting first round upset. It's always great to see an eight beat a one, but to do it with total fast break basketball just makes it the most exciting upset in the history of the NBA.

Before I go, I just want to call out Brett Favre. He's whining that the Green Bay Packers didn't make enough effort to win a title with him now. Someone should tell Brett that the Packers would be a playoff team if they had a star quarterback. Not only has he ruined the last three years for the Packers by not understanding his current limitations, but now he wants to cripple their future. Brett has been holding Green Bay hostage for too long, it would serve him right if they traded him to any other NFL team where he could expose himself as the has been who everyone seems to know he is aside from himself. If the Pack could get a third round pick for him, they should do it in a heartbeat, unfortunately the fans of Green Bay seem as deluded as Brett when it comes to his current talent level.

Thats all I've got for now, hopefully I'll be back soon with more, I've got Idol this week along with all the season finales of a great television season. Until then...

-Bender Out

Catching up again

Had to catch up on my entertainment news this time around. There's a ton going on this time of year with all the season finales on TV, but the most newsworthy thing is this ridiculous Paris Hilton situation. Paris is going to jail for 45 days, and she's crying to everyone who'll listen. Apparently she thinks she's being made an example of, and if that's true, so be it. She's become famous for being a wild child, a rich spoiled brat, and even though I'd still love to party with her (like I did out in Vegas a few years back, inside joke.) I can't imagine a more suitable fate for her than to go to jail because she didn't realize the rules applied to her. The part where this becomes so comical is now she's try to get a pardon from the Governator. She and her "people" still don;t seem to understand, they still can't believe that the rules apply to them. Paris' mom was lucky to not be arrested after her behavior in the court room. I just can't relate to these people, which is what makes this whole scenario so fascinating.

Onto my favorite TV shows. We'll start with Idol. Ever since Sanjaya was voted off, the show has become boring and predictable. We all miss him, heck I miss him, I miss the way laughed, I miss his crazy hair-dos, I miss his smile, I miss his smell...Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, it was obvious that Chris and Phil would get voted off last week. Despite Chris' valiant effort to introduce the world to the nasally style of singing, he just wasn't that great, and when the numbers get thinned out the little teenage girl votes can only carry a guy so far. As for Phil, he just seemed like a good guy, I mean sure there were rumors of him cheating on his wife with the very hot, very sexual Haley Scarnato, but how can you blame the guy? You've seen his wife when she was cheering him on from the crowd, I mean how can a guy not cheat when his wife is showing the wear and tear of having popped out a couple babies?

Anyway, last night they sang Bee Gees tunes. The Bee Gees being one of the more underappreciated bands of all time, they endured being the but of everyones jokes throughout the 80s and now it's ok to admit that you enjoy their music, basically they're the predecessor to Journey in that regard. In another five years everyone will be listening to the backstreet boys again it's all a big cycle that pop bands have to go through. The biggest disappointment was that no one sang More Than a Woman, which is by far the best tune they have. And the thing that made me the most giddy? It was Randy finally calling out Blake for doing his beat-box crap during a perfectly good pop song. I don;t think it'll be enough to send his ass home, I think Lakisha is the obvious choice. There are three women who sing a similar style, they're all relying on talent to get them through, and one douche bag who thinks he's the next big thing, he's getting by one crappy beat-boxing and silly dance moves. Lakisha is way more talented than Blake, but she'll get voted off because she's the least talented of the three singers who are relying on talent. I can only hope that Blake will be voted off next week. One thing that has been on my mind, he's one of these little B-boys, shouldn't he be in better shape? I'm never one to throws stones about someone's conditioning, but he doesn't look like he could break dance at all, maybe they used to forcw to sit on the side and beat box for them, that's how he developed that skill. Anyway, I just don;t think I could bear it if he got to the finals.

Now ime to celebrate the two finest shows on television, Lost and Heroes. Some people had begun to criticize lost, saying that the show had lost its way or lost its meaning, so they made a commitment to wrap the show up after next season, so that basically means we have 28 hour-long episodes left and all the questions will be answered, and as a result there have been some crazy revelations. Not only did they give us the greatest crossover yet, Locke's father being the con-man who cause Sawyer's family to fall apart, but they also tell us that they found the wreckage from oceanic 815, and everyone on that flight died! This is crazy, I may not like the direction things are going in, but at least it has a definite direction. Tonight's episode should have even more answers, maybe they'll tell us how Ben got to the island, if not tonight, then soon.

As for Heroes, this show has just kicked ass from day 1. I'm biased, I was always a huge X-men fan, and a lot of the characters in this show are straight out of X-men with their powers. The episode last week, set five years in the future was the best one yet, Peter Petrelli was the biggest badass ever on television. I've always though it was a little unfair to give one superhero so many powers, thats why Superman doesn't translate well in modern times, but Batman is ageless. Anyway, the whole showdown between Peter Petrelli and Sylar was awesome and it bodes very well for the future of the show. Rumor has it that next season will be a split between two stories, one that takes place in the past featuring the Petrelli mother, Mr. Linderman and Soo Loo from Star Trek. The second will be a story set in the aftermath of Peter's explosion while they try to kill of Sylar. Either way I think Heroes has had the best first season of any TV show in the history of the world! I'm dying to see what goes down next monday and similar to Lost I'll pining for next season's premiere all summer. If NBC brings back The Black Donnelys and Friday Night Lights, next year could be another television season to look forward to.

Anyway, make sure to watch the season finales, unless you're too far behind, in that case shell out 30 bucks for the DVDs. Until next time...

Bender Out

Oops they did it again...

In celebration of Britney Spears

little comeback show last night, I just had to use her song title to describe the latest coup by the New England Patriots. It really has been the perfect off-season by the Pats, every time they make a move I get tingles because I really think they're making a run at the dolphins perfect season in '74. Before I talk about how great the Pats front office performed this weekend I just want to admit one thing, no matter how bad Britney's antics get, I'll always be waiting here to give her another chance. People say she's slutty or trashy, I say that sort of thing has never bothered me. Maybe if she could somehow manage to not mess her kids up too badly, I'll be waiting to receive comeback after comeback with open arms. Onto the borophyl.

How can anyone question the Patriots acquisitions this weekend. They took a shot at a couple "problem children" with tremendous talent. The Patriots are really the only team who cuold absorb these problems and turn them out toeing the line. Randy Moss was on track to become the second best receiver in the history of football before being traded to the Raiders. If he wants to reclaim his career there will be no better place than here in New England. He just needs to commit to winning and Let Brady and Belichick do their things while making a few great plays here or there to help them along the way. Moss has never been a team leader, and he needed to be in a situation where he would be in no way asked to lead, now all he needs to do is fall in line and tell Bob Kraft his ring size. As far as the drafting of Brandon Meriweather goes, this was a guy who had the talent to go about ten spots huigher but slid because of a couple unfortunate incidents while at The U. He had probably the most embaressing performance during that ugly brawl with Florida International last fall (no small feet because there was plenty of shame to go around.) But he manned up and admitted how wrong he was and apologized for his actions, under the tutelage of such veterans as Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi he'll learn how to be a professional and could end up being an impact player in the mold of Ed Reed. As if these two acquisitions weren't enough the Patriots also made a great move for the future by acquiring the 49ers first round pick for next year. In exchange for the 28th pick in this year's draft, where they clearly didn't want anyone on the board, the patriots acquired a pick for next year that should be in the top 20 or so (maybe lower due to the dreadful level of competition in the NFC.) This whole off-season has been a dream come true and I can't wait for the season to start. Now if they could only sign Britney Spears as a cheerleader, maybe a stint with the "Patri-ettes"could turn her career around as well.

I've been avoiding commenting on the Red Sox hot start this year, mostly because everyone in boston is so over the top when they talk about every Sox game every day that I don;t want to add to it, it's as if they don;t realize there is a new game every day. All that said I wasnted to comment on a few things baseball related. First and foremost, Jon Papelbon, I realize he blew the save last night but that doesn;t change the fact that Paps is the best closer in baseball right now. It might be a waste of his talent to use him as a closer, and for him personally the sooner they convert him to a starter the better his career will be. I just don;t believe that a guy can last as a closer for a full career. The only people who should close are pitchers who have rubber arms and pitchers who only have one or two good pitches. So I'm ok with having him do it this season to help the Sox win another ring, but after that, no more, they owe him that much. The second best thing coming out of the 'pen this year has been Hideki Okajima. It was joked that Okajima-san was brought in simply to hang out with Daisuke, but he's been awesome out there. I love all his junk, I love the fact that he's looking at the ground when he lets go of the ball, I even love his stupid necklace that only surfers wear. Watching him come through in every clutch situation has been the most pleasant surprise this season.

One last note, I wanted to admit that I broke down and watched the American Idol charity show last week. It was great to see my girl Carrie Underwood again, and as cold-hearted as I am, i was sucked in immediately by the awful stories from Africa and America as well. I loved the Jack Black segment, he was perfect for the show last week to give me an excuse to laugh. as my old fried Dick Clark would've said (not the Dick Clark, a different one,) pitter patter on the old heartstrings.

That's all for now, I'll be back sooner than usual hopefully.

-Bender Out