Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Super Bowling




Finally I’m going to put out some thoughts on this Super Bowl which I wish were tomorrow. Obviously I’m predicting a huge Patriots victory, although in this case it’s probably only 75% homer-ism as opposed to my standard 100%. Tom Brady’s ankle will be fine, Bill Belichick will have his standard genius gameplan ready and the Giants will be off their roll because of the two week layoff.


Critics have started to question the Pats these past few weeks because they haven’t been winning by the same margin that they did early in the season and the opposition has been apparently moving the ball up and down the field at will. But they’re forgetting how the Pats won back to back Super Bowls in ’03 and ’04. They have the old bend but don’t break defense going for the last six quarters, and they were in full control of both playoff games. Just like they did in their back to back 17-2 seasons, they knew they’d win the games the whole time.

I actually feel really good for the Giants; they deserved a good run after giving it their all in week 17 against the Pats. In fact, I was openly rooting for the Giants the last three weeks. I love the fact that Tiki Barber is being proven wrong, I always thought he was an overrated player, especially because he was such a problem in the locker room. With Tiki out of the equation and Jeremy Shockey being injured, they had gotten rid of two thirds of the triumvirate of terror (the third being Michael Strahan) who caused all of there problems in the past and somehow led to them being the most overrated team in football every year. Now the team is more cohesive, Tom Coughlin is being allowed to lead them without his supposed “stars” undermining him at every turn.

In preparation for the upcoming Super Bowl, the NFL network has been airing old Super Bowls, and I couldn’t help but re-watch Super Bowl XX when it was on. I always loved that old Pats team; that team had two of the all-time great Patriots, John Hannah and Andre Tippett. Watching the game now I still got a little worked up. I firmly believe that Karma was working against the Bears after that game and it was behind the quick fall from total dominance to never winning another title. There was a sequence in the third quarter, while the Bears led 44-3 that the Bears blitzed five consecutive plays, sending at least seven on each play, and as if that weren’t enough the players were jumping off-sides, then delivering late hits to Pats QB, Steve Grogan. I’m all for playing hard while you’re on the field, but this was just pure “Douche-Baggery.” Combine that with the fact that they made sure to get William Perry a rushing TD without securing one for Walter Payton first sealed they fate as a one year wonder, albeit arguably the best team in history before this year’s Pats came along.

Well I’ve typed way too much for now, just wanted to give a link to another good clip off Funnyordie.com again, it's basically what restaurants would be like if me and my friends ran a restaraunt, you can see it here. Also the have a parody of the Tom Cruise Scientology video, and here's the real thing, (the real thing disappears a lot off youtibe.) Not sure which is funnier, a couple notes from the real KSW stands for Keep Scientology Working, LRH stands for L Ron Hubbard, and SP stands for Suppressive Personality and all of it translates to crazy. OK I’ll hopefully be back soon to comment on the Johan Santana trade and for now I’ll be counting down to the return of Lost on Thursday.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Heath Ledger, Dead at 28


Shocking, completely shocking. When someone told me about Heath Ledger being found dead, I thought for sure it was just one of those crazy rumors that spread around and everyone is so intrigued by the information that they can’t wait for the facts to come out, so they spread it further. But now that I know it’s true I am completely floored. Sadly there are certain celebrities who I could hear died and while I would be sad, I would hardly be surprised. In fact, just last week Brad Renfro passed away and I didn’t really do so much as a double take. But unlike Renfro, Ledger never really had rumors of personal troubles, or demons that he was dealing with.

“Envy is ignorance,” I remember seeing that quote back when I was 11 years old, and although this situation doesn’t exactly apply to what Emerson was saying, it certainly holds true. Ledger seemingly had everything, and now it’s all gone. It seems like so many people who have these lives we all envy are very troubled, and very often it ends badly. Whether it be Brad Renfro, who was plucked out of his hometown as a child and handed stardom, or Ledger who was fast becoming one of the most well respected young actors in Hollywood. We don’t really know who they are or what their lives are like, we see money and fame and think it’d be wonderful to be in their place.

It’s not known yet if his overdose was intentional or an accident, but either way it is completely tragic for a talented young man who had the world at his feet.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Is that Glen Rice or R. Kelly?

Glen Rice beat up some dude that was trapped in his wife's closet. No confirmation as of yet whether or not anyone "pulled out a gun" or if there was a midget involved either. I saw the story online here and couldn't help but post on it. It's almost as if the stars were aligned perfectly for me to post on this. First off, I once spent a day at work watching all the first twelve chapters of R. Kelly's "masterpiece" Trapped in The Closet and frankly it is the greatest piece of comedy I've ever seen. Second this could be part of series I write on the famous athletes named Rice, after talking about Jim Rice last post I could just go off on a tangent. Not only could I talk about Glen's indiscretion, from there I could comment on Jerry whining about Randy Moss' lack of grace after breaking the single season TD reception record. Then the next step would be Tyrese Rice and the BC Eagles suffering their most embarrassing loss of the Al Skinner era. They lost to Robert Morris this week, at least when they lost to Northeastern a few years back they had future NBA player JJ Barea. Finally I've hear rumblings that Sam Rice's bones are being exhumed as part of the follow up to the Mitchell investigation. OK I made the last one up.

Another reason I had to comment on this story was because as you can see in the above picture
Glen's wife is pretty damn hot. I know, it's a huge shock given that he was a millionaire athlete, those guys never get hot wives, either way she needed her picture up on my page.

A couple last things for today, I watched the Harold and Kumar trailer and I couldn't be looking forward to it more. If NPH is back, you will count me in!

I wanted to give a shout out to Newton's greatest rap duo E-Gadz and Big Trubz. The pride of Newton had their final show this week; hopefully just for a while, not forever.

That's all for today. Go Pats!

-Bender Out

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Travesty


Jim Ed, denied again. Jim Rice the finest power hitter over a twelve year period from 1975 thru 1986, has been denied his rightful place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Every year at this time it hurts a little more when I hear the bad news that my first pro sports hero hasn't been voted in. I have to see players who weren;t nearly as valuable as Rice such as Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter and Ozzie Smith get voted in, while Jim has to sit on the outside and do his best to hide his well deserved acrimony. If the GMs from St. Louis or New York had called up and offered any of the aforementioned players for Rice during their careers they would've been laughed off the phone, in fact the Red Sox may have stopped taking their calls. But they were the finest in History at their little niches. They were the finest relievers or the best fielding shortstop, but Jim while not the greatest power hitter of all-time was still much more valuable than many players who are already in the Hall. Gossage, Sutter and Smith combined never won an MVP, they only have two combined top five finishes, for the most part they played at the time as Rice and Jim Ed had 6 top five finishes in the MVP voting including winning the award in 1978. If Rice was considered more valuable during his career and no GM would've dared trade him for these "Hall of Famers" wouldn't this mean that Rice was better? I think too many writers get caught up in numbers, they spent too much time in their basements theorizing about baseball and not enough time playing it. But, the Rob Neyers of the world aside, I also think that some writers sub-consciously still hold a grudge against Rice because he was a real SOB in post-game interviews. The Boston writers who saw his greatness every day realize that his attitude with the press had no effect on the field; but the writers in other markets were left with just enough of a bad taste that they choose to keep out Rice with his borderline numbers. Whatever the reason is I really hope he gets in next year, no one has ever received such a high percentage of votes (72%) and not made it in eventually. 2009 is Rice's final chance and it will break my heart if he isn't in there.

So on a much more positive note for me, I was reading about the most anticipated movies of 2008, and I couldn't help but get a little giddy. There are lots of cool sequels, (Indiana Jones, Batman) remakes, (Star Trek, Get Smart) Jud Apatow Comedies, and the first movie of the new year that I'm really dying to see Semi-Pro which combines two of my favorite things: Will Ferrell and Basketball. You oughtta check out the trailer here.

While I'm throwing in links the best online game I've been wasting my time on right now is a good one for anybody who feels like they missed on the Dungeons and Dragons era it's called Monster's Den, and it's good for at least a couple hours of wasted time.

That's all I've got for today, for all the young posers out there, keep it rizneal, 'til next time.

-Bender Out

Monday, January 07, 2008

Bring Back My Writers!



It's already starting to be a real struggle keeping myself entertained. You'd think I'd be blogging everyday given my claims of being bored by my lack television, but just because I'm bored doesn't change the fact that I'm lazy, so get off my back! If this writer's strike keeps up I might just start getting into this Presidential Election, turns out there are some sort of primaries going on up just north of here today. The young people have something to believe in the first time this millennium, if not longer. No longer do they have to choose between a dolt and a stiff, this time around they can support Barack Obama and not view him as the lesser of two evils. I can't remember the last time I saw a politician who made me excited, I don;t really have any frame of reference for this, but this must've been a bit like how the young people were feeling back in 1960, record numbers of young voters came out to vote in Iowa and hopefully it's just a sign of things to come.

Of course, the most exciting news in terms of the democratic process, American Idol starts up next week. Maybe AI combined with Lost will be enough to sustain me for a few months, let's all hope so, otherwise it's all politics all the time for this guy. I actually watched Fox for a short time tonight and caught the latest flop of a BCS Championship Game. I think there's only been one good game out of the last five Championship Games. This game was interesting until about midway through the second quarter when it became obvious that Ohio State was over-matched once again. I briefly tried to keep myself entertained by concentrating on the play of OSU Linebacker James Laurinaitis. Not only having I been following him since he signed with OSU ,(due to the fact that his dad was Road Warrior Animal of WWF fame.) But now it seems like he might be the Patriots first round pick next April. Honestly I wasn't that impressed; lucky for young James I am a terrible judge of talent, but the only impressive play I saw him make was an open field tackle in the fourth quarter while being clipped form behind. Ohio State had a few moments in this one, so it wasn't nearly as ugly as last year's debacle at the hands of Florida, but it never felt like Ohio State had a chance, congratulations to LSU for winning this game and being lucky enough to not have to play USC or any of the other contenders for the national title because this BCS farce continues. The biggest highlight of the whole broadcast for me was when they played Con Te Partiro in the post game montage.

The best part of the game being a blowout was that I got to flip over to HBO and watch the final episode of Extras for the third time. The show was great in its brief 12 episode run, but the final episode took things to a new level. It was far more dramatic and serious, but it still had some great cringe-inducing moments along with the usual lot of witty quips, all with a underlying commentary about fame, happiness and contentment. I could watch this finale another ten times and still be enthralled every moment. Just brilliant! I've been trying to kick my DVD purchasing addiction, but I may need to pick this one up when it comes out, preferably as part of the complete series so I can get the classic jokes about "gobbling cocks" and hear David Bowie inspired song about the main character's life.

The only other thing I had to comment on was the return of America's finest athletes. That's right, I've watched all three hours of the new American Gladiators. I've been mildly entertained so far, but I don;t see this lasting too long, at least not in prime time. A few things stick out for me about the new version. First off, the new female gladiators are a lot hotter than the previous version. I have as many fond memories of Zap as anyone, especially after her appearance in Skin Deep, but she doesn't hold a candle to these new girls. The second ting that stuck out from the new show is the freakish looks of Gladiator Titan. He looks like one of the cast members from 300, only he looks in real life like they did after the visual effects had been edited in. Surprisingly in the ten plus years that the show was off the air, they couldn't come up with any new events to compete in, also I think the first budget cut should come by ditching Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali, they're terrible. Aside from the Hulkster's attempt to break a record for saying "brother" the most times in a 30 second span, there's no reason to have either of them there.

Well that's all I've got for now, don;t forget to watch the Pats in prime time this Saturday. For now...

-Bender Out