Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

So I figured that I would post on a few quick things today before I fully commence with my vacation week. I'm doing my best not to waste my time playing video games, but today the fight against this horrible addiction got a little harder, at right is a screen shot from GTA4. And soon I'll have to break down and buy either and X-Box 360 or PS4 because I have to play this game, apparently the game revolves around a Russian gangster named Niko and it's set in a fake version of NYC. So three months from now when I disappear, you all will know where. The screen shot doesn't really capture everything. Here's a link to the trailer. So that's looking pretty bad-ass.

I wanted to follow-up on my review last week of On The Lot, I forgot to mention my favorite guilty pleasure on the show, and that's the casting of their short films. The actors, who I'd like re-named the "On The Lot Players," have lots of familiar faces. So far I've recognized Lin Shaye best known for her roles in Farrelly Brothers movies. Also former sitcom staples, Reginald VelJohnson, Tatyana Ali, and my favorite, the kid who played Chip on Kate and Allie, (I'm not sure if he has a name, but he will always be Chip to me.) The other fun oart about watching this show is seeing the smug "artistic geniuses" get ripped by the judges. Not all of the contestants qualify as people you want to see get ripped, but it's very satisfying when one of the jerks gets ripped.

In other big TV news, the return of USA's two comedic mystery shows, Monk and Psych. I love both of these shows. I've had trouble getting into most of the cable original series other than the ones on the premiun stations. I've tried and failed to get into shows like The shield, Nip/Tuck and The Closer, but Psych and Monk are just my speed. I love the casts and the blend of comedy and mystery which are both among my favorite genres. So I'm pumped for those two shows, they're both on Friday, and my DVR is set to record them.

On Tuesday, the Smashing Pumpkins new album came out, their first in a while, so I decided to check it out. The music is actually pretty good, but my problem comes from the fact that only Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain are back, but James Iha is gone as is D'arcy, so I'm wondering what really makes this any more The Smashing Pumpkins than Zwan was or even Billy Corgan's solo album was. I'm not really complaining, it's pretty rare tht I actually enjoy new music these days, so I'm more than willing to welcome bak one of the old stand-bys.

I wanted to touch on a couple sports stories. First, leave it to that huge egomaniac Tony LaRussa to do actual damage to his own team during the All-Star Game. He pissed off Albert Pujols by not playing him in this year's exhibition. I can't imagine what was going through his head when he made his own star die the pine without even telling him. This could be the most important event at an All-Star game since Pete Rose ruined Ray Fosse's career by running him over and breaking jaw, Fosse was never the same. Anyway, if Pujols sulks this could be the mean that one of them will be on their way out of St' Louis and maybe LaRussa will be headed toward an earlier retirement than he had planned.

The other sports story I've been following is in the NBA. The Summer league has started and essentially the Seattle Supersonics have the future of their franchise on display. Kevin Durant and Jeff Green haven't exactly set the world on fire in the summer league, although that's not a huge deal because most rookies struggle during summer league against any NBA veterans. But the biggest news since the draft has been the departure of Rashard Lewis, which means that the Sonics are starting from scratch. This may not be the worst move for a team who thinks they're getting a real superstar in Durant and maybe a future all-star in Green but I view the dismantling of a team like this as fools gold for GMs. The T-wolves are very close to making a similar move if they trade Kevin Garnett. It's very tempting to make a move to go back to the bottom so they can rebuild, but these teams forget how rare it is to get an all-star let alone franchise player, and before you know it you could be desperate to get back to mediocrity a la Danny Ainge and the Ray Allen trade.

That's all I've got for today, I'll be back.

-Bender Out

Mission Accomplished, again!

Yesterday was a great day to be an American. Joey Chestnut finally vanquished that foreign aggressor Takeru Kobayashi. For years Kobayashi was laughing at America, eating all our American "Hot....Dogs." But one man stepped up, and said "enough is enough is enough, this is the US of A and across this line you do not..." By the way dude, the picture on the right is of Chestnut, but not from yesterday, I chose this one because he was surrounded by a couple ladies. Anyway, no longer wil Takeru Kobayashi shame us on our proudest of days, Joey Chestnut put an end to this reign of terror, and it just makes me a little more prouder to be an American.

Just after Joey proved that no one eats better than Americans, I was off to the movie theater to see Sicko. For those of you who haven't heard, this is Michael Moore's new film and instead of going after George Bush this time, he's going after the health care system. Sure George Bush is a small target in this one, along with Richard Nixon, but so is Hillary Clinton. Why Hillary you ask? Well in the years after her proposal for universal healthcare was shot down by the Republicans in congress, Hill has sold out her ideas and now receives millions from the health care industry in campaign contributions. But I digress, the real key to this movie is showing the succesful universal healthcare systems in many other countries, and while the United States is at the forefront of many things, in health care we rank 36th. Mostly because we're more than happy to leave the poor and needy off to the side while the rich are blessed with great help through more expensive policies paid by their employers. This is really the American way. Anyway, this is obviously a piece of propaganda and not a true documentary, but it has me convinced more than ever before that we need to change the system. I always enjoy Moore's films, and I realize that you have to take them with a grain of salt, but I think that deep down he always has a good argument to make and he's very passionate about driving for change which is refreshing. One idea that he pushes in the movie that I can't quite agree with is that eh attacks the pharmaceutical companies as well. Unlike healthcare, the US pharmaceutical companies are at the forefront in terms of developing new drugs worldwide, so we can't just tell the companies to stop charging a lot for these drugs because they're spending fortunes on developing the new drugs and advancing medicine. So that's my small rebuttal. I'd be happy to start a dialogue with Mr. Moore if he's reading.

While I'm on the subject of films, I wanted to give a short review of the new reality show, On The Lot. I had high hopes for this show where amateur filmmakers compete for a million dollar development deal from Dreamworks. It was created by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, so basically one of the all-time greatest filmmakers teamed up with the ruler of reality TV (not to damn him with faint praise.) And they even brought in Garry Marshall and Carrie Fischer to be part of the show, both of whom I enjoy, but the show just isn;t doing it for me. Maybe I just don't enjoy short films enough, but to me the shorts have been mediocre, none of these people has really been able to shine with their three minute films, maybe they're too rushed to get their creative juices flowing, I don;t know. I'm not gonna stop watching it, but that's mostly because with the type of crap that is shown during the summer there's plenty of room on my DVR. If only they could recreate the magic of past summer TV shows, like Me and Mrs. C.

The only other shows I've been watching this summer have been Etourage, The Loop and Man Vs. Wild. Entourage has been getting beat up a little by some critics, but I think it's as fun as ever. Ari is great and so is Johnny Drama and I always get a kick out of the inner workings of Vince's career and the celebrity lifestyle. I don't know how realistic this show is, and it's more than likely that I'll never know, but if all movies are made the way Medellin is, I can see why a lot of crap makes it to theaters. As for The Loop, I don't know why I watch this show other than the fact that I'm a huge Eric Christian Olsen fan. I also like the main character played by Bret Harrison, he was on the short lived Grounded For Life an under appreciated comedy a few years back. The Loop usually makes me laugh a couple times per episode and I feel like I might as well watch it now because it won;t be around for too long. As for Man vs. Wild, this show is just great, they drop a survival experted named Bear into the middle of the wilderness and he tries to survive and get back to civilization. I haven't seen too many episodes but I love it, nothing beats when Bear has to buil;d himself a fire and shelter out in the middle of the wild. I think everyone should check this out, it's on discovery channel fridays at nine, so set your DVRs.

That's all I've got for this special holiday edition of The Bender, I'll try to post again soon about all the goings on in the NBA and how great the Red Sox season is going, but I make no promises.

-Bender Out