The Bender

Thriller!

2009-07-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

In the two weeks since Michael Jackson has died my opinion on the man has changed almost every day. The second I heard Michael was dead it didn’t mean anything to me. I thought of it the same way I’d thought about Anna Nicole Smith’s death. He was dead, and though he was too young to die, it almost seemed like the next logical step. He wasn’t really contributing anything anymore. There was a little bit of shock, but he seemed sick the last few years, and truly he’d reached the point where anything could come out about him and I wouldn’t be surprised. Goodbye Michael, it’s been a long strange trip.

But then I sat and watched the News coverage. All it took was a four minute recap of his life and I started to realize, this was a big deal, it was a huge deal. They played the songs, the ones he’d recorded before I was born. He was this sweet kid belting out songs and moving like a true professional. Then they showed the things I remembered the moonwalk, the glove, and the videos. I remembered being in Mrs. Beatty’s class in first grade, a kid named Noah brought in his Thriller tape and he’d play it during snack time and the whole class danced; we even tried the moonwalk. I remembered going to my friend’s house across the street and she was telling me how Thriller was great, but he’d had another great album called Off the Wall before that, so we listened and it was pretty good. But I didn’t really know all those yet so I told her Thriller was still better, and we listened to that a lot more. I remember forcing my parents to buy the Boston Herald because it came with a full page poster of Michael and I put it up on my wall for a while. I may have even shed a tear when I heard about his hair catching on fire while he was filing a Pepsi commercial. Michael ruled the world, or I guess he was sitting on top of the world according to Eddie Murphy, (just so long as he wasn’t at the Beverly Hills Hotel.) If you think about it, is there anyone around today who could get people to wear anything as ridiculous as one sequined glove or a stupid red and black leather jacket? If that fashion trend doesn’t tell you how big he was nothing can illustrate it. The popularity faded a bit, no one could stay that big, no one had ascended to those heights, and perhaps that of fame was the beginning of his downfall.

Fast forward three years and then came Bad. I had heard the song on the radio, but I hadn’t seen a video or anything; my family didn’t have MTV, and V66 had gone off the air. I distinctly remember walking through a mall down in Silver Spring MD with my cousins and I saw it in a record store. Some strange looking woman’s picture all over the record store, but it wasn’t a strange looking woman, it was Michael. (I figured MJ had undergone plastic surgery, but he cleared up that misconception by revealing it was the result of puberty and a strict vegetarian diet.) I thought he’d gone off the deep end, which he probably had, but soon after I was singing along to all of his songs, especially The Way You Make Me Feel. I was back on the bandwagon, the music was too good. Then came the Grammies; and Michael played Man in the Mirror with a gospel choir backing him up. This was the last time I remember the Grammy Awards show meaning anything to me as well. Man in the Mirror is still my favorite MJ song; and the hits kept coming from Bad. Dirty Diana, Smooth Criminal, Leave me Alone, I was still into it right up through Moonwalker. Sure I would just listen to the jokes about him being feminine or his best friend being a monkey and I’d laugh along.

As I was getting older I had to become a closet MJ fan I was getting older and I knew it wasn’t the coolest thing in the world to love MJ anymore so I would say things like, “You’ve got to admit Smooth Criminal is a pretty great song even if Michael Jackson sucks,” or “I don’t like Michael Jackson, but moonwalker for the Genesis is a really great game.” It was a code that my friends and I all spoke in. The act continued right up through the release of Dangerous. He would make major video debuts on Fox, and the music was still pretty good, but it seemed that he was getting stranger, and the music wasn’t quite as great, but no one had told MJ so he kept putting out these over the top videos and the least impressive parts were MJ and his music. I still bought the album, and some of the songs were really good, I would listen to Black or White, Remember the Time, the Free Willy tune and Heal the World, but I would certainly deny being his fan if anyone asked, because it was decidedly uncool. But Michael was still very popular, during the past two weeks I’ve found out that more people watched his halftime show during the Super Bowl than there were viewers of the game itself.

Nirvana and Pearl Jam came along, and as everyone loved to point out, Nirvana knocked him off the top of the charts. Then the music moved to the side and the controversy completely took over. Strange stories about oxygen chambers and amusement parks he built for himself to play on gave way to serious allegations of molesting kids. I didn’t want to believe it, but the press would release strange details about sleepovers with boys where they shared a bed and then the kid apparently described MJ’s discolored junk in detail. MJ paid the kid a ton of money and the criminal charges went away. From this point on it was never the same. Until very recently I thought it was an accepted fact that he’d done it. But life isn’t like a movie, it doesn’t just end when you think it should, he kept trying to reclaim his glory. He married Elvis’ daughter, a strange coincidence to say the least, and he released a cool song with his sister Janet who was still near the top of her game. He released a double album, HIStory, half greatest hits, half new stuff, just in case you couldn’t tell he was a shadow of his former self, it was right there on display. There was only one other hit on the whole second disc.

Michael’s slow fade into irrelevance continued. He got divorced and remarried; he supposedly fathered three kids, although I’m not sure if he could really describe the process by which children were created. He put out a remix album with dance versions of his hits; it sold a lot of copies, but nothing like he used to sell. MJ tried to put out one last new album, but it was a dud, and the fact that it came out just after 9/11 didn’t help. MJ only existed on Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition form that point on, until his accusers finally had their day in court. Michael went to trial for the child molestation charges. He beat all the charges, and I watched with puzzlement, not only at the verdict, but at MJ’s fans that cared so much. There would be talk of comebacks most recently a huge concert tour in Britain. It wasn’t like he was forgotten, not totally anyway, in the last month I sat with a group of friends and talked about his riches, the music catalogs, etc. but they corrected me and told me that he was in financial trouble, then we all made fun of his controversies, we quoted South Park, made jokes about him diddling celebrities, then we moved on to making fun of Corey Feldman, which is how most of my conversations end up.

But it all ended two weeks ago. He was gone. It wouldn’t have been MJ if there wasn’t controversy over how, and over whom the father of his children was and his will and so on. But now the controversies were less significant. Without the strange man around anymore we could concentrate on his greatness, we didn’t need to worry about the kids, we could think about when we were kids, and how we loved his music. We could think about how Michael had been a constant presence in our lives. We could remember when he was the most important presence in the world. I watched his funeral and listened to Brooke Shields remind us that he was actually a human being, and I felt genuine sorrow when his daughter came up and spoke. Without Michael around to tarnish his own image he was the great artist again. And now when I hear his music, I can just enjoy the music without thinking about the sideshow.

Goodbye, Michael

That’s just Manny being…Shipped out of town

2008-08-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

The greatest continuing drama in Boston sports has reached its final conclusion. Manny was shipped out of town for an all-star left fielder. And now we have the ever present Red sox PR machine working overtime to make sure everyone understands that Manny was a bad person and a bad teammate and an overrated player. And the sheep from Red Sox Nation eat it up like so many blades of grass while they graze the Boston sports scene. I can’t explain why Manny pushed a retired cop/traveling secretary, nor can I justify Manny taking two days off with a phantom injury. But I can say with confidence that if the Red Sox hadn’t wanted Manny out of town, things would’ve been handled much differently. They publicly fought with Manny for the last few weeks. Team Owner John Henry had the balls to be indignant that Manny claimed the team says one thing to your face and something else behind your back. What makes this particularly ballsy is the constant PR game that the Red Sox have played every time a player left the team. They pulled it with Nomar, they pulled it with Damon, and they pulled it with Orlando Cabrera and anyone else who has left the organization. They even pulled it on one of their own when Theo Epstein had a contract dispute. This has been a Red Sox trick going back to the early 80s when they sent Fred Lynn and Carlton Fisk out of town. The Sheep continue to eat up what the PR machine feeds them. All that aside, it’s about more than a PR battle, this group has never appreciated Manny. They never understood the difference between an all-star and a superstar. The fans and the organization didn’t understand that a presence like Manny made the entire team better. The SABR-metricians think that numbers on a stat sheet can explain it all, but there still exist intangibles that will never show up on a stat sheet and those intangibles can mean the difference between a team winning a lot of games and a team winning championships. Manny batted behind Ortiz for a reason. It’s because Manny was the best hitter off his generation. Perhaps he is on the downside of his career, but he still commanded an opposing pitcher’s full respect and attention when he was in the lineup. Manny’s bat carried them in the playoffs whenever someone aside form Josh Beckett was on the mound. He hit a walk-off homer against K-Rod then clobbered the Indians in the ALCS. For everyone who doesn’t believe Manny deserved the World Series MVP in 2004, he more than made up for it last years when he was the best hitter in the playoffs but didn’t get the World Series MVP in their four game sweep of the Rockies. The Red Sox put Manny on waivers in 2003 but no one claimed him, the Red sox were lucky and The Yankees are still paying for not picking up Manny that year. Manny came back and helped them win two World Series. The Red Sox never understood how lucky they were to have the greatest hitter of his generation, and in this case it was better to be lucky than good. The Red Sox are going to find out the hard that you should be careful what you wish for, because they just came back to the pack on July 31^st.

Since I’m on the topic of The Red Sox, I’ll just throw out a few more thoughts from this season. Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis have stepped forward as All Stars this year, and they’ve been fun to watch. Dusty is just a little guy who takes huge swings and you’d never think he’d be able to get away with it if you hadn’t been watching him do it for almost two years now. Dustin isn’t the only one defying logic, Dice-K has been playing with fire all year but almost never gets burned. He continues to allow base runners but allows very few runs. The best story of the year, the reason I keep watching games, is Jon Lester. Lester has really stepped up and become a potential All-Star. He had a rough patch at the start of the year but since has been the Sox ace. Despite the nice stats from Dice-K and the resume of Josh Beckett, Lester has been the Sox best pitcher this year. I only really care once out of every five games; it’s when Lester is on the mound. Over 162 games it’s impossible to really care every game, if the best teams of all time lost one out of every three, but if Lester is on the mound I can actually get into it, I care about all the small plays and long at bats that can lead to victories. There are just so many reasons to root for Lester. He’s a cancer survivor, and if you don’t root for cancer survivors you probably have some issues you should deal with; but even if he wasn’t there’d be plenty to like. He’s a quiet guy who has been brought up slowly through the organization. He was almost traded to The White Sox during one of the organizations ill-advised attempts to unload Manny. People had started to doubt his ability, but he just kept going strong and this year he has broken out and looks like he could be an elite left handed starter for years to come.

One final rant before I go. The Little League tournament is on TV right now, and they’ve added lots of rules to protect the kids. There’s a strict formula about how many pitches a player can throw each week and how many they can throw in a game, but for all these rules they’ve added the kids throw curve balls every damned pitch. It makes no sense, they don’t want to hurt their shoulders but it’ll be fine to blow out their elbows. Any coach teaching a 12 year old how to throw a curveball should be ashamed of himself. There’s no reason for a kid this young to be throwing a curve, they might do better as twelve year olds throwing curves but many believe they’re hurting their future, doing irreparable damage to their arm. OK…Rant Over.

-Bender Out

Fan Shots

2008-07-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

Is it time that NESN bans the fan shots during games? Just one night after they got a Red Sox fan on TV giving the finger, this happens. A shot of a Tampa fan receiving a hand job. Is this for real? Thanks to the world's greatest website Barstool sports for catching this. What the heck has this world come to? And does this girl have a slutty sister for me?

A few other notes for this quick day. I'm not too worried about the Red Sox getting swept by Tampa. Yes it's unfortunate, and yes the Sox look like they have a lot of problems right now, but a week ago everyone was still calling them the team to beat and soon they'll be back home doing their thing. Papi is out, Manny is struggling, Buccholz is being held off for the stretch run, they limit their starters' innings so they can dominate like Beckett did last year, and not fold like CC Sabathia. It's 162 games, and sure the Sox aren't in first like they were after 81 games but I still like their chances.

Lots to review from the NBA draft and other developments since. I'm going to go on record as saying that Russell Westbrook will be a big bust. That whole Oklahoma City franchise is going nowhere fast. They keep betting on the wrong horses, Kevin Durant and Co. are not headed for the playoffs any time soon, and choosing Westbrook 4th will could haunt them for a long time. Charlotte seems like another team destined for mediocrity. Not only did they pick a mediocre point guard ninth overall but now they're trying to trade Raymond Felton to clear the way for DJ Augustin. The Bobcats have shown how clueless they are ever since their inception. I'm still not convinced about Danilo Gallinari and I bet NY fans are gonna run him out of town before he becomes even a mediocre forward. As for the winners, well Portland seems to be headed for a nice run in the next few years, they continue to throw around money to earn themselves extra picks, which may or may not pan out, but you have to like the increased odds when you pick so often. I also liked what both Memphis and Minnesota did both teams got what they needed. Memphis is all about the bottom line right now and they cut their payroll for the future while adding young potential all-stars. Minnesota got a nice player in Mike Miller along with Kevin Love who they really wanted. Most of all both teams seem to be trying to build something great as opposed to winning just enough to keep them at the bottom of the playoffs every year.

Anyway, that's all for this quick post. Be careful what you do in public, you never know who'll be watching.

-Bender Out

Losing My Religion

2008-06-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

Pearl Jam is in town this week, and by in town I mean at the crappy Tweeter Center in Mansfield. Actually I take that back, it’s now the crappy Comcast center in Mansfield, I think Tweeter is all done. Not sure if they went out of business, but Comcast is kinda a big deal. If Comcast were a person it would have many leather-bound books and its den would smell of rich mahogany. But back to the point, Pearl Jam was in town, and similar to the last time they were in town, I’m not going. Why is this newsworthy? Because, in 1993 I was prepared to start my own cult, and that cult would be based solely on the teachings of one Edward Vedder, and his cronies in Pearl Jam. I have been known to make ridiculous claims, sometimes I say that Pearl Jam saved my life, on other more reasonable days I simply say that Pearl Jam changed my life and gave me one step closer to enlightenment. So why am I missing their tour for the second straight year? The short answer is, because I’m old. At 30, going to a Pearl Jam concert is no longer what it once was. I felt the pain, as did many of my friends, when they were going concert free and fighting Ticket Master. I even had their back, and I fought through the pain of not seeing them. I ended up seeing them in concert four times, and the God’s honest truth was that it was a very disappointing set of experiences. Not because Pearl Jam didn’t rock, because they definitely did, it was because I was surrounded by a bunch of drunken assholes. No one there truly appreciated the music, they were just there to get drunk with their asshole friends and then do stupid things like moshing or crowd surfing,. Then some girl would crowd surf and many of the drunken animals would try to cop a feel. Anyway, I’m now too old for that shit. Maybe I’m just not cut out for rock concerts, but Pearl Jam for a few years was my religion, it was what I identified with, and Pearl jam is still my favorite band. I bought Riot Act and Binaural the day they came out (those are what I refer to as the slim years) I have way too many of their bootlegs for it to be deemed appropriate, and some might refer to it as an obsession, and lastly I still can’t accept that Eddie didn’t win an Oscar for his songs from Into The Wild. I just know that at 30, music just can’t possibly mean as much to me as it did when I was fifteen. I will always appreciate that time in my life, but that time is no longer.

Heavy is the Head...

2008-06-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

The Boston Celtics have reclaimed their rightful throne on top of the Basketball world. Bob Ryan calls it the “First ever six game sweep.” And I’m fully on board with that claim. The Celtics showed themselves to be the dominant team. In only one year things went from being completely hopeless, to being total domination. KG silenced all the doubters, I’m not sure if this was something that he said during his incoherent interview with Michelle Tafoya, but it may well have been. I think he quoted Jimmy Cagney, by accident of course, and then told Michelle she looked good. I give him an out because I believe we were watching pure euphoria. So now Kevin has solidified himself as one of the true elite players of his generation, no more questions like those that haunt Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing to this day. Shouldn’t an elite basketball player win at least one title during his career? One player has such a huge impact on success, is it really too much to expect that a star will lead to at least one title? Good questions, but not for KG to ponder anymore. The next big winner is Paul Pierce. I used to have to debate with friend over whether or not PP was among the top 20 or 25 players in the NBA, they just wouldn’t listen to reason. I always knew Pierce was top 12 if not higher, but those who weren;t watching closely didn’t like his ugly game and didn’t want to let him be called an all-star. It was just two years ago that Reggie Miller wanted to put Tayshaun Prince on the All-Star team over Pierce, a more valid argument would be whether or not Pierce was better than everyone on the Pistons, but Pierce is vindicated, he can now start talking about his place in history, not just whether or not he was an all-star one year. Ray Ray and Doc and Danny all are feeling better, not to mention Rajon and Perk. Everyone had something to prove, perhaps that’s why they won 66 games this year. I don’t think they’ll win that many next year, even if they win the title, the win total will be much lower. Another thing that won’t be happening next year: Steven A Smith won’t be comparing Danny Ainge to Isiah Thomas any time soon. Steven A used to bring up Danny anytime someone wanted Isiah to be fired. Well it turns out that Steven A was stupid and Isiah got what he deserved as well.

Of Course I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up someone else who used to trash Danny Ainge. I refer to none other than (drumroll please) The Bender. I always trashed Danny for his poor trades, but obviously I was wrong, just a year ago I was bemoaning another waste of draft picks. Danny, who always made great picks except for one since becoming GM of Boston, had traded away the C’s pick for Ray Allen, while adding a lot of other assets, and I was fuming. I declared that there was no master plan and Ainge had to go. Well I guess I was very wrong. Danny is the greatest GM EVER.

Speaking of the draft, last year it was all we had. Now it’s almost an afterthought. Well here’s my two cents on this year’s draft beforehand. The Celtics will get another steal this year, as they have with almost all of their picks in the last 5 years. I don’t know who they’ll draft, but I do predict that once they pick him, I will declare it to be a steal, abnd say that he is underrated. Even if it is Roy Hibbert, whom I have trashed in the past, his stock will rise exponentially is the C’s get their hands on him. I will say that I’d take Derrick Rose over Michael Beasley, and after that it’s a crap shoot, some days I think Brook Lopez will be a strong starter, other days I think he shouldn’t be a lotto pick. I was always down on Kevin Love, bnut now I see him as a top five pick. One thing I am confident about is that Danilo Gallinari is not a good pick. I’ve never been more down on the concept of European players than I am right now having watched Pau Gasol, Sasha Vujacic and Vlad Radmoanovic wilt in the finals. Is this type of pre-judging inappropriate? Perhaps, but I bet a lot of the GMs are on the same page as me. It’s like the backlash against High Schoolers that occurred after Kwame Brown and company were such busts in the 2001 draft. I’m going to enjoy the draft this Thursday, but it won’t be the same as it was for the last fifteen years. The draft has always been about hope for the future and the infinite possibilities that await, but when you’re on top, you don’t need to dream as much as you have to enjoy the moment. I’ll root for The Grizzlies, they’re my second favorite team, because they stink and I like their players, and no matter how many people trash him, I still like Chris Wallace. Wallace makes me think I could be an NBA GM someday.

Anyway, that’s enough for now, maybe be back on /Friday to say who blew it on draft night, and then have to retract it a year from now, til then…

-Bender Out

Lakers Vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs

2008-06-06T00:24:00.000-07:00

Well game one is in the books, and already it seems the Celtics have won more games than most of the media predicted. I’ll admit there were times when I was more than a little worried tonight, such as when Paul Pierce was carried off the floor and I had visions of his career being over, or when a minute later Kendrick Perkins limped off. (Perkins had committed the unforgivable foul of being tackled from behind by Derek Fischer.) But the Celts at least got one win under their belts and hopefully it’s a sign of things to come. I don’t begrudge anyone for picking the Lakers, there are times when I watch Kobe Bryant and I just can’t envision him missing a shot. And then you throw in his nice supporting cast of former all-stars like Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping for the best, in many ways we’re just playing with house money. Just a year ago I was advising the C’s to blow it up and hire a new GM while they were at it. But since they made it this far, they might as well win it all, and there’s no way I can accept losing to a douchebag like Kobe. I know it wouldn’t be the classiest move, but I can’t help but want to shout “no means no” every time I hear people praising what a great player Kobe is. (I know; I’m so crass. But at least I’m not a rapist.) Plenty more is still to come on this one.

By the way, while everyone in the North End was preparing for a renewing of a glorified rivalry, the Red Sox were renewing a very petty rivalry back at the Fens. Over a three day period the Rays went from being the first place team in the AL East to being the same cheap shot artists and punks that they’ve been for years. For the historical perspective, the Devil Rays/Rays most notable legacies in their history are feuding with top teams and also drafting number one. In the late nineties the Rays used to try and start bean-brawls and bench clearers just about every time they met the Sox. And the Sox were all too happy to oblige. Most famously the D-Rays plunked batter after batter one night while the Sox couldn’t retaliate because Pedro was throwing a possible no-no. Anyway, fast forward to the present. Coco Crisp take offense to Jason Bartlett blocking second base with his knee on a stolen base attempt, leading to Crisp going spikes up into Akinori Iwamura the next time he’s on base. This leads to Tampa manager Joe Maddon starting a shouting match with Crisp when Crisp was in the dugout. And tonight, Coco got plunked during his first at bat and charged the mound. Now this was no ordinary bench clearing brawl where guys come out and socialize with each other, say “hi” to old teammates and posture a bit to pad their manly egos. First pitcher James Shields throws a haymaker at Crisp, which he dodges nicely, then Tampa catcher Dioner Navarro tackles Crisp and the Rays pile on Crisp taking cheap shots, most notably Johnny Gomes and Carl Crawford. This is who the Rays are, a bunch of cheap shot taking punks. Oh the gutless ways they do things in Tampa, people say I shouldn;t say bad things about Carl Crawford and I say ‘why not?’ The Sox went on to complete the sweep of the series, like professionals, and they’ll plunk Craw Daddy when he least expects it.

It’s been a huge night in sports but I just wanted to comment on a couple more things before I go. The Real World Hollywood has just taken a drastic turn for the worse. They kicked off Greg, “the chosen one.” This is an outrage. Apparently you can go on a drunken rampage where your roommates fear for their lives, and you can tell one of your roommates that his father died because he hated that roommate for being secretly gay, but god forbid you miss a stupid improve night. In general improv is very hit or miss. Even at Second City or the Groundlings, the improv can suck ass and that’s when the stars of the show are well trained clever people who go on to become great comedic actors. But I can imagine nothing less enticing than watching the real world cast perform improv. They are a bunch of vapid dolts, and not a single one of them has said anything even accidently clever on the show, and that was over four months of shooting. Whoever decided to put these people in improv classes should lose their job as a television producer. Anyway, Greg is off the show, he was a total dick, but at least he knows it, the other six are fuct and they have no clue.

One last note, apparently the biggest rumor mill item in Hollywood is that Lindsey Lohan is actually a lesbian and she’s dating a DJ named Samantha Ronson. Normally I would go off on a diatribe about how ridiculous the concept of a celebrity DJ who performs at clubs is, but right now I’d just like to say bully for them. I hope the press gets off their nuts and they can become a happy healthy couple, and then maybe Lohan can go back to making decent movies like Mean Girls. Or if not, the two of them can fade away peacefully and live a comfortable life in California as a happy married couple, as things should be.

-Bender Out

Is it Summertime?

2008-05-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

“See it or skip it?” What the Eff is this crap? I’m watching Ebert and Roeper “At The Movies.” The most famous of all the movie review shows and they go away from the two thumbs up review method. It’s only one of the most famous sayings in pop culture, why would we ever want to continue using one of the most famous sayings in pop culture? They seem to be re-packaging the show, which is fine I guess, things are different than they used to be 20 plus years ago, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Speaking of Ebert and Roeper, they reviewed Recount, an HBO movie, and gave it “two See its” (just not catchy) and Roeper actually claimed that it was an unbiased view of the recounts. Recount is a lot of things, but unbiased is not one. I enjoyed it thoroughly but I understood that the guys who made this movie were definitely on the side of Al Gore. It is a fine movie, it was interesting to recount all the details of the re-count, and to see all the politics involved. They certainly were giving no quarter to Catherine Harris, who comes off as over-matched although very hot, and I’d like to party with her. Mostly after the movie I just thought about how the world could’ve been totally different if things had just been a little different in Florida. Who knows maybe it wouldn’t have.

On the subject of movies, I saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It was a fun time. It seems every critic wants to pan it, but I think we’ve all forgotten what the Indiana Jones movies were. They were fun adventures with a charismatic star. I’s not like we’re getting the fourth Godfather movie here. Why are people complaining that the new Indiana Jones is too unrealistic? Is it really any more unrealistic than an Arc that melts peoples’ faces off or a guy who can rip out your heart and hold it in his hand while it still beats? Just go to the movie, buy some popciorn and a soda, maybe even some Sour Patch kids and have a good time.

But enough about movies.

Can I finally write a requiem for the San Antonio Spurs? I’m tired of them, like most everyone outside of the greater San Antonio area, (which must be pretty huge.) I feel like Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker have become the two most overrated players in the NBA. They wouldn’t be nearly as highly thought of if Tim Duncan weren;t carrying their asses. Duncan does all the dirty work, the heavy lifting; then Ginobili or Parker makes a pretty drive and people think they’ve done something spectacular. I heard Ric Bucher say that Manu has had as much to do with the Spurs Championships as Duncan, it almost caused me to get into a car accident. Manu wasn;t even around for the first title and for the second one he was not a big contributor. As an aside, I definitely refer to Manu Ginobili as a European player far more often than I do Tony Parker. Sure Manu is from Argentina and Tony is from France, but Manu just acts more European. I’m hoping we’ve seen the last of these spurs in late May. Perhaps they can have a final run in a couple years where they take some team to seven, like Jimmy Connors at the US Open.

I’ve been concentrating on the Celtics-Pistons, hoping for the C’s to take it in 6 tonight and then a subsequent explosion from the Pistons (not their fans, mind you, please no riots.) I hate the Pistons, they really think of themselves as a dynasty, but they’re really lucky that even won a single title, they’re dysfunctional. ‘Sheed may very well be a sociopath, I don’t know how anyone who plays on the same team as Rip Hamilton can claim that the other team is flopping, that takes some serious balls. When Rip takes off his stupid mask he looks just like Greg from the Real World: Hollywood. Not only do they look alike, but they’re both full of shit. Rip’s flailing and flopping is an embarrassment to the NBA. Anyway, I don’t want to jinx my beloved C’s. I actually went to a few games during the infamous 15 win season and I waited patiently for Antoine Walker to blossom into a superstar, so I feel like me and the other C’s fans have earned this one.

Hopefully all will go well with The Celtics this weekend, so I can properly enjoy the return of The Venture Bros. After too much waiting and searching for info online, I found out yesterday that the best show on Adult Swim returns Sunday night.

-Bender Out

What’s Cooking?

2008-05-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

The evil beast has finally been slain. For the last five months, evil has been disguised as a seventeen year old. He charmed so many with his innocent smile and “aww shucks” attitude. But behind all those charms was the downfall of Western civilization. He threatened to bring music down one more level, and while American Idol isn’t exactly noted for its high minded views on the art of music, I really believe that if David Archuleta had won, a small part of America’s soul would have died. OK I’m obviously way overstating AI and DA’s respective roles in America, but I’m just happy he didn’t win. And in some ways I do think that American Idol was saved by David Cook winning. It’s the first time the most talented contestant has won since Carrie Underwood in Season 3. I’ve been hoping that the voters would send Archuleta’s puppy dog style back to the Shire for many weeks, hearing the judges fawn over him when he couldn’t even really understand a lot of what he was singing, it made me sick, all the while they trashed Jason Castro and Brooke White. Anyway, Cook can now graduate to making mediocre pop-rock while his career is controlled by the leaches sucking the business dry, and Archuleta can try to compete with Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers for the young peoples’ attention (and their parents’ money,) taking his rightful place as a latter day Tevin Campbell.

A couple other highlights from the show; first the George Michael medley which only lacked a great Wham tune, but did debut George’s unfortunate nose-job. Basically the one of the reasons I enjoy Idol is because when I’m singing along to songs by forgotten pop stars I don’t feel so alone. (I do still feel ridiculous, but that’s deserved.) Bryan Adams and Donna Summer were also given a little time to shine, and that’s fun. Where else but Idol? I just can’t understand why they never got to mentor the contestants, it would’ve been fun to see Bryan Adams telling the kids what’s what. I could’ve done without the final ridiculing of the lost souls from the open auditions, but I guess that’s part of the deal at this point.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I did want to put out a link. If you like Boston Sports and hot chicks, check out Barstool Sports.

-Bender Out

We're playin' baaasketbaaallll

2008-05-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

I think most people would assume that my latest lack of posts has to do with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. But sadly this is not true, in fact I have to shamefully admit that I don’t even own an Xbox 360 or PS3 yet. So instead of rising to the top of Liberty City’s crime syndicate I’m doing more mundane things like going to the grocery store. Speaking of which, how dare the Columbo people try and change the size of their delicious yogurts from 8oz. to 6oz, yet they kept the same price. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I compare the Comlumbosian family to drug pushers, they got me hooked at a young age and they keep pushing up the prices and milking me for more money. I also wonder what other customers are thinking when I pick up the 48 pack of toilet paper. In this age of BJ’s and Costco you’d be a fool to buy your toilet paper in anything less than a 24 pack, similar to the way I used to buy my Bud Light in college. But it bears mentioning that I feel very awkward with a 48 pack of TP under my arm as I march up to the check out lines. I sometimes start telling total strangers that I haven’t been feeling well or that I ate a lot of Buffalo wings the night before; these lines tickle me to death but usually the other person just ignores me or is horrified. Apparently no one wants to share a laugh with me.

But I digress, I’m not here to talk about my grocery shopping in the past, I’m here to be positive about the future. And mostly I’ve been consumed with Playoff Basketball these past two weeks. Tonight the Hornets went up 2-0 on the defending champion Spurs and I think the world might finally start to realize exactly how good they are, and more specifically how great Chris Paul is, and we might want to start talking about his place in history. I have to admit that I was not a Chris Paul believer. I supported the Hawks when they took Marvin Williams ahead of him, and as recently as this year I thought that Deron Williams was still his equal, but no longer. (Ironically I did know that Chris Paul would’ve been a better pick than Andrew Bogut, just not Marvin.) I’m starting to think that Paul could go down as the second best point guard to ever play the game. I’d already put him ahead of recent players like Steve Nash and the vastly overrated Allen Iverson. This post-season Paul could be placing himself up in the Isiah Thomas stratosphere, not one of the top ten of all-time, but on the next level; and that’s very hard for a little guy to do. Anyway, I don’t want to call the series prematurely, but the Hornets look like they have this match-up all over the Spurs, Ginobili’s flops aren’t getting called, Tony Parker is being exposed as less than an all-star, Chandler is making Duncan look a bit old and David West is ready for his close up. I think we might be watching the end of the Spurs “dynasty.”

A note on The Spurs, and mostly on Tim Duncan; I don’t want anyone to think I’m crapping on Duncan. Duncan is one of only five players in the last twenty-five years who could be crowned as the greatest player alive. There was Bird, then Magic, then Jordan, followed by Shaq, and then Duncan. They were the five best players of the last twenty five years and while you can argue that Duncan was number five on that list, there’s no shame in that at all. Superstars on this level often somehow become underrated; people don’t realize how much better their teammates seem when they get on the court with a superstar. But all great things must come to an end, and it’s obvious with Shaq and Duncan isn’t far behind.

The other semi-final out west is far less interesting to me. I don’t really enjoy the Lakers, but I think they’re going to make easy work of the Utah Jazz. Kobe Bryant is a very talented player, but he’s never been the type to elevate his teammates other than the attention he draws from the defense. Gasol and Odom are talented but flawed players, I enjoy a lot of their role players like Touriaf, Walton and Fisher but they don’t make up for the fact that Kobe is a total douche bag. I’d like to watch the Jazz beat them, but I just don’t think they’re ready. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer are hard working physical players, but they can’t make up for their overmatched teammates, including Ashton Kutcher.

I’m not really ready to talk about my Celtics’ first round series, all I can say about it is that ever since the Super Bowl I’m back to the old days of waiting to be disappointed by the local teams, instead of assuming they’ll win. All that said, I still think they could win a title. The Cavs although more talented than Atlanta are probably a better match-up. Lebron is phenomenal, and is the rightful heir to the “greatest player alive” throne, but the rest of the team looks like the guys you bring together in an effort to get the number one draft pick. I’d say Delonte West is the second best player on the Cavs, he’s hard nosed and ready to battle, but not quite up to the challenge, kind of like a latter day Scrappy Doo. As for the Detroit vs. Orlando, it’s unfortunate that the Pistons will win this one, I hate Detroit but Dwight Howard just doesn’t have enough support to make the Pistons pay for their Laissez Faire attitude. The Pistons think of themselves as being the team of the decade but in reality they are probably just an afterthought similar to the Heat from two years ago.

A couple last notes before I wrap it up, I must not have been paying attention the last few years, but I’d say the announcing is lacking. Perhaps it’s because they’re split over two networks, but I think they need to upgrade all the announcing teams and perhaps the studio hosts. If I had to listen to Dick Stockton refer to the “year and a half” that Joe Johnson spent in Boston, I might have flipped out. Johnson only spent a couple months in Boston and I doubt he really felt there was anything personal about playing against the Celtics. Reggie Miller is bad as well, he seems like the latest in a long of announcers who was a famous player so the networks made the mistake of thinking he’d be an insightful announcer. He always seems to think that flopping players were really fouled hard. You’d think it would be his expertise to expose such behavior, but perhaps he’s still abiding by some scoundrel’s code so he can’t call anyone out. The only impressive thing about Reggie is that he’s apparently able to pull double duty as a sideline reporter sometimes. I also don’t understand why TNT keeps bringing Magic Johnson in to the studio with Charles, Kenny, and Ernie. He adds nothing, perhaps he’s just there as a feel good story. I never dreamed back in ’91 when Magic announced that he had HIV that he’d still be on my TV 17 years later, and that does make me feel good, but perhaps we could just have him sit there instead of asking him questions.

That’s about all I can bear for talking about the NBA, I did want to put up a link about on of the NBA’s all-time underrated dicks, Karl Malone. Here’s the article. Apparently not only is Malone an ignorant homophobe and not only does he try to bang his teammates’ wives, but he also commits statutory rape and won’t be a part of his illegitimate child’s life. The one good thing you can say is that Malone’s bastard children are great athletes, he now has one in the NFL and a one in the WNBA.

That’s all for now, but I’ll hopefully be back soon with an update on movies, I’ve seen a lot. Until then…

-Bender Out

Ambition

2008-04-17T00:03:00.000-07:00

I’m back with a big update. You’ll have to excuse me for my less frequent posts, I’ve been busy writing my book “Moneyball 2: how steroids and three aces created a playoff team.” It’ll be a closer look at the Oakland A’s of the early oughts, how the Moneyball theories really didn’t create a title contender it was more a result of striking gold on three pitching prospects. The revisionist history being that the Oakland A’s would’ve been hard pressed not to succeed given the fact that they were running three young Cy Young contenders into the ground and their team had the most rampant steroid use in Major League Baseball. OK, you caught me; there’s isn’t any book in the works.

A quick sidebar: how is it that new ads for Gossip Girl can say “OMFG”? Is this really allowed by sensors? Do they just not know what it means? I think this goes back to the whole “skeet skeet” thing from a few years back. It’s obscene but really it’s some sort of inside code of obscenity, so they’re skirting the issue. If it were up to me I wouldn’t allow it unless I allowed the word Fuck on prime time television as well. While we’re at it, I demand that John Cena change the name of his wrestling from the STFU to something more appropriate.

Anyway, I’m not here to talk baseball or censorship today, I’m all about my true passion, the art of film. I’ve been plowing through my Netflix queue lately. I saw No Country for Old Men again, and it was just as great as the first time I saw it. There was a huge outcry when the movie came out because the ending didn’t provide enough closure, there was too much ambiguity, but after seeing it again I actually enjoy the ending more. It was a much more satisfying ending than last year’s best picture, The Departed, where just about every character gets killed. (Sorry if you haven’t seen it perhaps I should have written “SPOILER ALERT!!!” or perhaps you should’ve seen it by now, it’s a year and a half old.) Anyway, even if you didn’t enjoy the ending I strongly recommend seeing it again, on the other hand if your problem was that you didn’t enjoy a sociopath mowing down everyone in his path; well I guess that’s a valid reason to skip it.

On the other end of the spectrum we had the Darjeeling Limited. I’ve been a big fan Wes Anderson’s films, and also a huge fan of Owen Wilson, but I feel like I’ve spent too many hours of my life watching slightly less interesting versions of his previous works. Wes is suffering from the law of diminishing returns, Rushmore was great, very funny and unique, but then came the Royal Tennenbaums which I thoroughly enjoyed but not nearly as much as Rushmore and so came The Life Aquatic an enjoyable trip and now the Darjeeling limited, each time the laughs were fewer and further between. I don’t really have any advice for Wes on how to remedy this, but I’m not paying for another identical comedy, no matter if it comes with a short film where Natalie Portman gets naked or not.

Anyway, these were pretty well known releases, especially No Country for Old Men, but I wanted to shine a light on a lesser known film, that film, Southland Tales. Southland Tales was Richard Kelly’s directorial follow up to the cult classic Donnie Darko. From all appearances I’d say that Kelly was trying to make a masterpiece but ended up with a total frickin’ mess. I don’t know how far off this film was from coming together and being a masterpiece, perhaps it’s a very thin line between garbage and masterpiece, but this one never came together. I had actually heard as much before renting Southland Tales, but I’ve always been a big fan of ambition, and frankly I miss it. Ever since the punk rock movement in the late 70s there hasn’t been nearly enough ambition, no one tries to make epic masterpieces anymore. The Led Zeppelins of the world gave way to The Ramones, mostly because no one was as talented as Led Zep, so most were better off imitating the Ramones. My point is that I’m willing to watch crap like Southland Tales in the hopes of someone making the next Star Wars or Godfather Trilogy. There were some enjoyable scene but I’d strongly advise against this one. I’ve taken the bullet for all of us on this one, and even though I support ambition, there’s no point in all of us sitting through it. Don’t cry for me, the lovely and talented Cheri Oteri was in this one, so I don’t regret my sacrifice..

That’s all I’ve got for today.

-Bender Out

And in the end...

2008-04-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

The Final four, the culmination of March Madness, I even think I picked Kansas back in December, or whenever it was that they kicked BC’s ass so soundly. Of course when I filled out my bracket I had UNC and when I was asked who would win before tip-off I said Memphis, but I think I’ll concentrate on my December prediction. I’ll admit that I was definitely rooting for Memphis; I’ve become infatuated with Derrick Rose’s talents. The Miami Heat were widely thought to be tanking for a shot at Michael Beasley, but I think they might want to be tanking for a shot at Rose instead. I loved seeing Memphis put it to UCLA, for some reason UCLA fans and supporters had become unbearable to me. Between the “no love for Love” debate, and their fans complaining about the constant reminders of every call going their way for a couple months. Listen, that’s the price you pay for getting a series of awful calls go in your favor, you got the wins but in exchange you have to listen to the complaints. Anyway, I didn’t mind Kansas winning. After years of not winning despite having arguably the best overall talent in the last fifteen years, why not have them breakthrough and win. Bill Self like Roy Williams before him had been labeled as a guy who couldn’t win big games, as recently as three weeks ago there was talk of Self being fired without a great run, of course now he’s the subject of a bidding war between Kansas and his Alma Mater Oklahoma State.

So some final thoughts on the college basketball season. Today on ESPN’s Around the Horn they asked if this Kansas team was one of the best ever in college basketball. The question is ridiculous on several levels. First, while they did have a very good season, they certainly didn’t dominate for the entire season. But more importantly, the best players don’t stay in college anymore. Derrick Rose was the best player in this tournament, and he was a damned freshman. He isn’t one of the all-time greatest freshman either, and next year he’ll be in the NBA, with all the other truly elite players. No team of this era would win against the best teams from the 90s. To call them one of the greatest teams of all-time you have to compare them with teams like the Early 90s Dukies. I’m not even sure if this team could’ve kept the game close against the Laettner/Hurley Duke team. How about the Fab Five Michigan teams, they didn’t even win a title, but I don’t think they would’ve had too much trouble disposing of a team like Kansas. I don’t mean to come down too hard on Kansas, they were the best team this year and deserve to have their day, but we should also remember that college basketball isn’t what it used to be despite what all of its fanatical supporters would claim.

One more quick sports note for today. Bill Buckner threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Red Sox home opener today. The fans gave him a huge standing ovation that lasted for more than two and a half minutes once he got to the mound. All the sportscasts declared that the Boston fans had finally forgiven Buckner. Enough time had past, and the Sox had won two championships, the fans could be so magnanimous as to forgive poor Bill. No longer would they ask “how dare he?” The real question is can Bill forgive the Red Sox fans. Today wasn’t about the redemption of Bill Buckner, it was about the redemption of Red Sox nation. Bill forgives them for their years of unwarranted abuse, and the applause was just an indication that the fans finally deserved his forgiveness. Bill never had to be forgiven, he gave everything he had to the game, he hobbled out there everyday and performed as a near Hall of Fame level player. He made one error in extra innings of a tie game and for some reason that’s all that anyone wants to remember. It’s all part of the strange relationship between athletes and fans. The fans feel like the players owe them something, the players somehow represent them because they play for their favorite team. It’s all very baffling, but somehow Bill Buckner and Steve Bartman and many others have been sucked up by this bizarre fixation and had their lives altered forever. Today Red Sox nation is forgiven its past discretions but doomed to repeat them someday. Today we can cheer and lets just hope we actually learned something through all of this.

And I’m Baaack!!

2008-03-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

So much has gone on these last couple weeks outside of politics, and it’s all in The Bender’s wheelhouse. The most important thing that went down of course was the final episode of the RW/RR Challenge on MTV. The Gauntlet wrapped up and while the Rookies won with their slim compact team, it may have been a career ending moment Big Easy. Eric aka “Big Easy” couldn’t finish the grueling final mission. I don’t know exactly how hard the final mission was, but I can’t believe how poorly he performed. I watched the reunion show this week to see if there’d be an explanation of what had gone wrong for him, but there was none, so I don’t want to be overly critical, it was obvious that he wasn’t exactly a pro athlete and not in ship shape, so he probably had some fear inside that his life could’ve been in jeopardy. All that said, I just don’t think he’ll be treated the same if he comes back for future Challenges. There was one interesting thing that caught my eye from the reunion show this time around. And no, it wasn’t that Coral came out guns blazing (not referring to her boobs.) It was that a few of the contestants seemed to go out of their way to state that they were successful in real life outside of their roles as MTV celebrities. I really enjoyed the idea that a lot of these people were making their livings as MTV personalities, perhaps that’s a thing of the past but hopefully there will be a book about the lives of reality TV celebs, sooner rather than later.

In other huge reality TV news, Chekezie Ezie was voted of American Idol. For me he was truly the most likeable contestant, especially more so than that little fraud David Archuleta. Chekezie was done in by two things this week. First, that damned Kristy Lee Cook singing one of the most patriotic songs ever written. I could just imagine hundreds of thousands of votes coming in from the red states on her behalf, and those votes may or may not have been preceded by conversations that anyone who doesn’t vote for her doesn’t love America. In fact I heard there was a situation in Texas where a fight broke out because someone wasn’t voting for Kristy and the result was that the “un-American” voter was banished to Massachusetts. So that person got what they deserved. The second big factor for Chekezie getting voted off was that he kept singing songs that no one had ever heard of. I remember his singing some Luther Vandross song at some point that had also been sung by Mariah I think, but aside from that I had no idea what he was singing. He even managed to find two Beatles songs that no one had ever heard of. But no use crying over it now, Chekezie is gone and all he got was some stupid video montage with Fat Ruben Studdard singing in the background. What we need is America to smarten up and vanquish that little devil spawn David Archuleta. Perhaps my words are too strong, but I can’t stand these little child star types, especially when they keep singing preachy songs like “Another Day in Paradise” and “Imagine.” He’s too young and inexperienced to understand those songs, at least “Imagine” anyway.

Have to at least weigh in on the NCAA tourney. I watched it all, the first day sucked. Duke survived a scary game but ultimately won, and there’s nothing more disappointing than that, and when they did lose it was to West Virginia, who is coached by the very hate-able “Huggy Bear” Bob Huggins. Other quick observations from the first weekend, I was quite under-whelmed by Michael Beasley. This guy is supposed to be the top pick, but he couldn’t even look good against Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a good defensive team, but if you’re a top star you have to be able shine on the big stage. Long story short, The Miami Heat are tanking for no reason. Stephen Curry was a revelation, the hype for him began last season and I poo poo’d it because I thought he was a product of his father’s fame. But he may be the best college player around before his career is over at Davidson. He’s an amazing shooter and undersized shooting guards are perfect for the college game. His shooting is so good that he may end up in the NBA someday, despite his diminutive size. Davidson really was the show-stealers of the first weekend, not only because they’re a double digit seed making it to the sweet sixteen, but also because they knocked off the only true title contender who has been eliminated so far. Georgetown really broke a lot of hearts because expectations were so high, they had probably the best Center in college basketball in Roy Hibbert, along with a top senior point man in Jonathan Wallace. They had a comfortable second half lead but it all fell apart, worst of all for many fans, CBS was showing other games for the bulk of their collapse so the comeback really seemed to come out of nowhere. Week two is set up well despite the eliminations of Duke and Georgetown, hardly any low seeds have stayed around, and one of them is Villanova who while a low seed had high expectations all season and has seemingly put it together for now. My last impression from week 1 is that Kevin Love is a really good college player, but I just don’t see him making it in the NBA. He had two clutch turnaround jumpers from the post to help win it against A&M and complete the comeback, but he’s too slow and not tall enough to ever be an NBA star. Perhaps a good conditioning program could change all that and he’ll be an all-star someday, I’ve been wrong before, but he just doesn’t seem to want it badly enough right now.

That’s way too much for now, so I’ll end it there. I double posted so don’t forget to scroll down and read about the Clintons if you’re bored enough.

-Bender Out

All Genuflect at the Alter of The Clintons

2008-03-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

How dare you!?! How dare anyone!?! On news broadcasts the last couple days, I‘ve seen clips of Chelsea Clinton being asked about her father’s past indiscretions. Chelsea acted incredulous that anyone would have the gall to ask something so inappropriate and offensive. After trying to illustrate how inappropriate the question was by mentioning that no one had asked her that in her 70 college tour on behalf of her mother she said, “That is none of your business.” Then the crowd applauded wildly. You showed that person who was boss, Chelse. (She and I are very tight, I just call her Chelse at this point.) Well here’s my advice for Chelsea if she doesn’t want to be asked about such things, don’t peddle yourself out in public to try and get young people to vote for mommy. Are you mad at that people keep asking about your dad getting blow jobs in the oval office? Well I know exactly who you should be mad at, it’s your pops. If you just can’t be mad at him, then perhaps you could turn your anger towards your mother, she’s the one who keeps peddling you out into public in a desperate attempt to become President. It’s not like this was some paparazzi that approached you while you were just trying to live your life. You held a nice question and answer session to get your fellow young voters out there for your mom, and one of the questioners had the nerve to bring up the 500 lb. gorilla in the room. I’d have no problem if Chelsea had just declined to answer and said that those past events had no effect on your mother’s ability to be President. But that wasn’t at all what she did, she went on the attack, chastised the questioner and all the little sheep applauded because they were afraid that the question could anger the celebrity in the room and Chelsea wouldn’t like them anymore.

This is the reason I care at all, The Clintons want it both ways. For years they peddled out Chelsea as a model of how great they were. They were great parents; the Clinton family was the pinnacle of American families and the American dream, (only the immediate family.) So they’d bring her out for a photo op on Monday then they’d chastise the media for saying anything about Chelsea by Friday. I admit, I always felt sorry for Chelsea back in the mid-90s. People made fun of her unfairly during her awkward years, and the people who made fun of her deserved to be chastised, but Bill and Hillary never quite took their share of the blame in those years. They could’ve done much more to protect her, but that wouldn’t have benefited them as much politically. And now, they’re doing it again.

The Chelsea situation is only the tip of the iceberg with the hypocrisy. Similar to the situation with Chelsea, Hillary wants it both ways with her time as first lady. Whenever someone brings up Bill in a negative light, Hill tries to say she’s her own person, which is fine, and I agree with that, Hillary should be separated from Bill and judged on her own merit. If we all agree on that perhaps Hillary will be a fine Vice Presidential candidate. But in the last month she’s tried to parlay her time as first lady into being the Democratic candidate with more experience. She put out her now famous, or infamous depending on your perspective, 3 AM ad. Who do you want answering the phone in the White House at 3 AM? Do you want the guy who’s only been a Senator for four years and before that was only in state government? Or, do you want the woman who’s been Senator for eight whole years and before that was one of two women to put out for Bill during his time in the White House? Well of course we’d rather have the woman who was senator for eight years and had the invaluable experience of being first lady. I guess it’s just lucky for the Mitt Romneys of the world that Laura Bush has no political aspirations, time as first lady is apparently the highest level of experience you can have.

I wish the Clintons would just go away at this point. They had a great run, but now they’ve gotten into dirty politics, finger pointing, and overall they’re just hurting the Democratic Party. They should let poor Chelsea live her life in peace, unless of course she decides on her own to get into politics someday, and there’d be a good chance that I’d vote for her. Quit “pimping her out.” (Oops, how dare I?!?) I meant to say “peddling her out.” God forbid I use terms from the present vernacular that used to have a totally different meaning.

Bill and Hill go back to your married bliss in New York and accept your defeat with class.

Vital Idol

2008-02-28T23:04:00.000-08:00

My apologies to Billy on stealing his title. As is my tradition, I’ve been watching lots and lots of American Idol. I got hooked in season 2 and my love affair just grew, culminating in back to back seasons featuring Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler. After featuring those two southern belle sweethearts they have a lot of goodwill built up, although they really put that to the test after last season’s crapfest which featured only one mildly attractive and the best singer had me wondering if she had some mental deficiency given that she was the only person on earth who didn’t know she was by the best contestant. Only the magic that was young Sanjaya Malakar saved last season and has me coming back to watch every episode.

This season so far hasn’t really blown me away. They did a nice job of hyping the kid who lived in his car, but then they cut him and watched the waterworks fly. I felt bad for the kid, and really all the young contestants when they get voted off. Just tonight that poor young girl got voted off, and she was a mess, didn’t want to sing but they forced her, then tried to play it off as an uplifting moment. She didn’t deserve to get voted off, in fact the people at home always disappoint me with their voting. They’ve already voted off one of the hotter girls, Amy Davis, who cares if her singing was kinda crappy we need to keeps girls like her around, at least until after we’ve eliminated the annoying contestants. Right now I think the hottest girl they have left is that Danny Noriega chick.

Oh what’s that? No, you’re pulling my leg.

It has been brought to my attention that Danny Noriega is actually a guy, but still very pretty nonetheless. So, my deepest apologies go to young Danny.

Anyway, my early predictions are for Brook White, Carly Smithson, Asia’h Epperson, David Archuleta, Michael Johns and David Cook to be the final 6. I’m already tired of that Michael Johns character, but the judges seem to like him, and the fans, to me he just seems a bit smug and rather ordinary. The kid David Archuleta seems a bit overhyped as well, he reminds me of a singing version of Sam Levine from Freaks and Geeks fame. I just don’t trust people who smile that much. As for next weeks eliminations before we get to the final 12. I’m going to predict Cady Malloy is gone, even though she’s kinda hot, voters have shown a lack of respect for such things, anyway she seemed resigned to leaving tonight. Then Ramiele Sulabay will get voted off, she’s a good singer but in the past the Asian contestants have always been voted off too early, so I’m thinking she’ll continue that. For the men, Luke Menard is definitely going, he’s like a less talented James Vanderbeek out there, the bloom is definitely off his rose. And finally, David Hernandez will be voted, not because of his singing, but because I find him to be completely unlikeable.

That’s all I got for now, I’ll be back soon with some commentary about SNL’s triumphant return.

-Bender Out

Oscar Night

2008-02-26T12:17:00.000-08:00

Well this year’s gala affair snuck up on me. And apparently it snuck up on a lot of other people, it was the least watched Oscars in years. I think it was a lot earlier this year, I always remember it being in March, so that could’ve had something to do with the fact that a lot of people didn’t to watch. Also it was a down year for movies. The two big movies that were vying for Best Picture, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, were indy movies, and while they were great, they definitely weren’t household names like The Departed was last year. Also the two Actor awards were foregone conclusion; I don’t know anyone who didn’t predict wins for Javier Bardem and Daniel Day-Lewis. Quick note, all of the acting awards went to foreign actors, which I think is a commentary on something, either positive or negative, not sure. Day-Lewis by the way is a real actor, so many of our supposed great actors essentially play the same role in every movie they just change the character's name (I'm talking about you Denzel) But it's refreshing when you look at the career of someone like Day-Lewis and find it hard to believe that the guy from Last of the Mohicans was the same guy who played Bill the Butcher. The feel good stories of the night, for me, were the two people winning for that song from Once and the former stripper Diablo Cody winning for best original screenplay for Juno. Has anyone figured out if this was her birth name, or is it her old stage name? I know this is a clichéd joke, but if you name your child Diablo aren’t you basically paving the way for her to become a stripper? Anyway, I’m happy for her as an individual and I guess it was nice for a comedy like Juno to get some nominations and even an award, but why do critics go nuts over quirky comedies like Juno when movies like Knocked Up or Superbad were so much more successful at their goal of making the audience laugh? The closest thing those movies will ever get to receiving an Oscar was the honor of Jonah hill and Seth Rogen presenting an award and doing a little shtick about which one of them was more like Halle Berry. By the way, it would’ve been totally genius for whoever won that award, (and the actually category slips my mind) to lay a big kiss on Jonah Hill a la Adrien Brody on the real Halle Berry a couple years back after she presented him for the best actor award. Anyway, that would’ve been the greatest Oscar moment ever.

Some disappointments from the show, those three songs from Enchanted sucked. Are you telling me that none of Eddie Vedder’s songs from Into the Wild were better than that crap? Also, speaking of Into the Wild, I personally wanted Hal Holbrook to win best supporting actor. Granted Javier Bardem did a great job playing a badass, but I can say unequivocally that Holbrook’s performance affected me much more. And here is my biggest gripe of the night, every year I enjoy the montage tribute to all of those in the film industry who passed away in the last year, it really is a highlight for me. I personally was hoping that they’d have Tab Thacker as part of the tribute; he played Finch in Wildcats and House in the Police Academy movies. And I do understand that you can’t include everyone, the list would be endless and someone is going to be forgotten or ignored, but not only was my guy left of, they also ignored Brad Renfro, who was a pretty famous kid, and died way before his time. They should definitely make this segment longer, more people deserve one final tribute, and perhaps they could’ve taken out one of their crappy self congratulatory montages of “Great Oscars Moments.” I don’t know, in some ways the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, it’s like a final kick to these people almost to say, “no, you weren’t good enough for a final tribute.”

All in all the Oscars were enjoyable, I really like Jon Stewart and I thought he was funny, but somehow it didn't feel like the event that it is meant to be. I don;t even mind that a bunch of danged foreigners won all the acting awards.

So That's all I got about the Oscars, I'll be back soon with some sports stuff, NBA trades, and of course I'll be giving my opinions on America's great democratic process, also known as American Idol

Giants Brought the Pain

2008-02-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

I don’t know where to begin. I almost didn’t post on this, because of the pain, but my fans have been clamoring so here goes. It’s hard to believe The Patriots blew it, I know this is a rather New England-centric view, but that’s what I am. So how did it happen? Well it was obvious to anyone watching the game that the Giants D-line totally dominated the Pats O-line. Someone on that D-line should’ve been MVP, they beat an offensive line that was probably considered the best in football. But the big key to the game was the Pats didn’t make the proper adjustments to neutralize the Giants pass rush. The Patriots were out-coached. I can’t remember the last time I said that. It may have been all the way back in the Pete Carroll era. The reason I didn’t think this loss could happen was because I thought we had the greatest coach ever in football, I’m not even making a joke there. That is how highly I thought of Belichick, but he’s not perfect, and as a result, neither are the 2007 Patriots. The only time the Patriots had success was throwing the ball short, on three step drops, but they couldn’t commit to doing that until their final scoring drive in the fourth quarter. There were a couple decisions I disagreed with; i.e. not kicking a field on 4^th and 13 from the 31 yard-line, also not challenging the fumble recovery by Pierre Woods on the Giants 30, which Troy Aikman said they might want to challenge, but those were really minor things compared to the fact that they never made the in-game adjustments they are known for. So after all that, when the game came down to the end, and a more talented Pats team was clawing for a win to save their perfect season, The Giants players stepped up and made special plays, and the Pats didn’t capitalize on their opportunities. On the final drive Eli Manning figured out how break away from two Patriots players who had a grip on his jersey, then threw a pass that should’ve been broken up on the other end, but David Tyree made one of the greatest catches in NFL history, trapping the ball between his one hand and his helmet. It’s being talked about as the greatest play in Super Bowl history, if either player doesn’t make a very special play there, I’d probably be writing about how great the Pats were this year, but I’m not because The Giants stepped up and earned it. But that wasn’t the only play of the drive that differentiated the Giants from the Patriots. On three separate occasions Patriot defensive backs could’ve or should’ve intercepted Manning passes, but couldn’t get it done. Asante Samuel had an easy pick, thrown right to him, but he closed his hands too early and dropped the ball that would’ve ended the game. If you’re not familiar with Samuel, you’ll know him better this off-season when he becomes the highest paid cornerback in the NFL, he’s probably the Patriots best defensive playmaker, he could’ve won the game on a gimme interception and helped the Pats escape with a win despite being out-played and out-hustled but he wasn;t able to make the big play. I’m not trying to say Asante lost the game for the Pats, I’m just saying that David Tyree won the game for the Giants, and no one made a similar play for New England.

Did the Patriots choke? I think that’s unfair to the Giants to say that they won because the Patriots choked. That’s really not what I’m saying at all, as I said the Giants stepped up, but the Patriots also choked. If the Patriots had played the way they did all year, as the best coached team, with star players who made big plays, they would’ve completed their goal and been 19-0. The coaches choked, the players choked and that opened the door for the Giants to become the champions. All their hard work ended in disappointment, there will be no perfect season this year, and I doubt there will ever be one. Once again we realize exactly how special that 1972 Dolphins team was, and exactly ho impossible it’ll be to see it repeated.

So now I’ve had to spend the last couple days listening to all the Patriot haters get their licks in. So many are coming out of the woodwork to take their bows, trying hard not to be too cocky when they say “I told you so” for predicting this upset. Gregg Easterbrook who has been writing on espn.com all year as if Bill Belichick had personally come to his house and killed his dog, wrote about how the season was totally redeemed on Sunday. I guess the league still would’ve been in peril if the Pats won, and the league would’ve been going down the crapper despite 97 million fans watching the game. Michael Wilbon, who I am a fan of, was on PTI Monday afternoon talking about the Patriots loss with such satisfaction and voiced genuine anger about The Patriots attitude coming into this game. He bragged about how he had predicted this win, and said the classless Patriots had gotten their come-uppance (I’m paraphrasing here.) I’d be more willing to give these people credit for their predictions if a single one of them had said how the game would go, but no one predicted such a low scoring game. Even Plaxico Buress’ prediction which so many scoffed at was too high of a score. You really shouldn’t brag about predicting a 31-28 win for the Giants, because you had no clue how the game would go, just like the rest of us. There’s a difference between knowing why a team would win and predicting the victory as a result, but to me Wilbon’s prediction was more of a declaration that he really really wanted the Giants to win.

One thing I will agree with Wilbon about was Coach Belichick’s behavior at the end of the game. I don’t understand why Belichick left early, with a second to go in the game. There was some initial confusion, the clock actually ticked to zero and everyone rushed the field, Belichick and Coach Coughlin had a very nice handshake at midfield, but as they headed off people informed both coaches that there was one second still left and while everyone else was cleared off the field and sent back to the sidelines, Belichick just left and went to the locker room. I don’t think it was a crime against humanity the way Wilbon does, but it just makes no sense for an adult to not act like an adult and walk back to the sidelines and sit through one final play of a painful loss. It would’ve been very easy for him to run back to the sideline, watch the kneel-down, and then go sulk in the locker room, but it’s too much to ask Belichick I guess. This incident is getting blown out of proportion by many people who already hate him, and they all wait for these incidents as an excuse to pounce on him. Maybe it’s because he’s so dismissive during press conferences, maybe it’s because he doesn’t buddy up to the other coaches in the league, whatever the reason certain media members are just waiting for each misstep. So why do I say I agree with Wilbon at all? Because this is starting to become too much of a pattern with Coach Belichick, he refuses to play by any rules, the rules of common decency for example. Why not just do the human thing every now and then? It’s interesting to me that Bobby Knight retired the day after this incident, because Coach Belichick is on the same path, it’s going to keep escalating, and it’s going to end badly. This “spygate” is coming to a head now, and if there’s no evidence then he’ll be fine, but if there is a tape all the critics will pounce again, his legacy will be tarnished, and for people like me it’ll become even harder to defend him.

A quick note on spygate: Belichick’s biggest ally in all of this is Roger Goodell because there’s no telling how far this controversy could go if there’s any truth to this latest round of accusations.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

Thank you Rudyard, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

So now the Patriots try to start from scratch, and I’ll be there with them. They have the 7^th pick in the draft this April, and I’d predict that they use this off-season to rebuild their defense into the dominant squad we saw back in 2003 and 2004. They’ll need at least one new starting cornerback, and they need some inside linebackers. Junior Seau will most likely be gone, and I have a feeling he’ll be joined by Rosevelt Colvin, probably Asante Samuel as well. Bruschi? I think he’ll be back. Their defensive line is all set, and they’ll stick with the safeties as currently constituted with Sanders and Meriweather as the future of the position and Harrison hanging around to do his thing. I’ve already heard a rumor that Greg Ellis will be coming to town to help the linebackers, although their real need is inside. On Offense Most things will stay the same, they’ll re-sign Moss, but say goodbye to Stallworth and Gaffney (a personal favorite) and make due with Welker, Chad Jackson and Kelley Washington. The saddest goodbye will involve Troy Brown, a seventh round selection in 1993 out of Marshall, same year they drafted Vincent Brisby. Brown was actually cut by the Pats three different times, but he retires as their all-time leader in catches and also holds a record with Vinny Testaverde as being part of the oldest TD combo in NFL history.

It all begins again, Vegas has them as the favorites for Super Bowl XLIII

Andre the Terribnle

2008-02-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

Andre Tippett, NFL Hall of Famer. It just sounds so right. He was my favorite Patriot growing up, really there weren;t many other choices. I do have a soft spot in my heart for Irving Fryar, Stanley Morgan and later Bruce Armstrong, but most of the other players came and went, Tip was the only guy who was consistently good during my formative years. He was dominant, probably the second best linebacker of his era, but he just played on crappy teams so he often seemed overlooked. I’m real happy about the Tippett situation, kinda the exact opposite of the Jim Rice situation, it shouldn’t really matter to me whether or not people agree with me about how good my favorite players were, but I like the validation. I’m just giddy, using this as an excuse to reminisce about those 80s pats teams, for some reason I enjoy thinking about the players, even if they were awful for a few stretches. In a 10 year period they had the worst record in football three times, but also made it to a Super Bowl. In some ways I’ll always look back more fondly on Raymond Claiborne, Ronnie Lippett, Don Blackmon, Johnny Rembert, and Steve Nelson than I will on the current Patriots dynasty.

Something else I really enjoyed more in my youth, or at least in my 20s was reality TV. But this year I haven’t really enjoyed the American Idol judges making fun of the “bewildered.” I’ve been trying to get into the new season of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, but all I can do is judge the participants for being fame-hungry and pathetic. I’ll give it time, maybe some of the chicks will start to look hotter and Danny will have some ‘roid rage. Also a new Survivor starts next week, featuring some returning favorite participants and I can’t even get into it. Maybe it’s because of the writer’s strike and over-saturation of reality TV, but I’m just not feeling it right now. I’ve probably just had enough of these particular shows, and I’m not really in the MTV demographic anymore.

Some shows I am enjoying include, Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab show and that new lie detector show on Fox. Both are pretty good quality, last week Dr. Drew unleashed his huge guns on the world. For an old dude he’s really jacked. The lie detector show is interesting, but it takes about five minutes per question, still worth a watch. The one other show I want to recommend is The L Word. If you get Showtime, you should check it out. I don’t really know any of the characters names yet, but when I see it’s on, I can’t turn away. It’s the only scripted TV I’m watching these days aside from some wrestling here or there, and of course Lost.

That’s all for today, I’ll be back with Post Super Bowl thoughts after the game.

-Bender Out

Hard Times in Minnesota

2008-02-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

So this is all you can get in return for Johan Santana? A few prospects that may or may not help you come 2010? Minnesota sports have now hit an all-time low for any town. Is it possible that Kevin McHale isn’t the worst GM in Minnesota? Admittedly, I’m not an expert baseball scout, I don’t even read Baseball Prospectus or any of those publications which tell who the supposed stars of the future are, but I find it hard to believe that any of these lower level prospects from the Mets will be better than Jacoby Ellsbury or Phillip Hughes. The Twins just traded the best left-handed pitcher of this era, probably the best pitcher in baseball today, and they got back no one who is ready to step in and play right now. Obviously money was the real impetus for the deal, the Twins just can’t afford to pay Johan what he wanted, in fact there are probably less than a handful of teams who could afford to risk a 6-year $150 million contract, which could blow up in their faces given any injury or even standard decline due to aging. All that said, you have to take the best deal on the table. It seemed like both the Yankees and Red Sox breathed a sigh of relief over this trade, they just had to make sure their rival didn’t land the ace. The Twins had them both in a good spot and started a bidding war, but they overplayed their hand, and now they have some players who could help them by 2010, but also could be getting four guys who never make it.

The other trade news going around was in the NBA. The Grizz traded their overrated power forward, Pau Gasol to LA, and the Lakers think they may have just added the final piece to compete for a title this spring. The Lakers didn’t give up too much to get Gasol: two first-rounder draft picks, rookie point guard Javaris Crittenden and Pau’s younger brother Marc Gasol. On Espn.com Chris Wallace defended the deal claiming that they were getting four first round draft picks for Pau, a former all-star. The only thing that makes me dislike this deal for Memphis is that Chris Wallace made the deal. Wallace has no business being a GM, but this one might not look so bad in the long run. Memphis is in rebuilding mode and Gasol has been a malcontent for a few years, they had to trade him at some point. But this trade might expose Gasol as a flawed player, being put on center stage out in LA with more pressure and scrutiny he’ll be exposed for his softness and his inability to elevate his game in the clutch. He isn’t even a good fit in LA, he’s a good low-post scorer, but they already have the emerging Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom is better suited as a power forward than a small forward.

OK, enough sports, Lost is back, and it’s still awesome. The new flash-forward motif is great, there’s a whole new set of mysteries to unravel. Whose funeral was Jack the only person to show up to? Why did they leave people behind on the island? How can Charlie talk to Hurley, or is Hurley just crazy? Who are the rest of the “Oceanic Six”? The only real problems with the return of Lost are, waiting a whole week between episodes, and the impending stoppage of new episodes because of the writer’s strike. Apparently there are eight episodes already shot, but after that we’re SOL. I guess I have to just enjoy it while it lasts, but this strike is starting to piss me off.

That’s all I’ve got today. Go Pats!

-Bender Out

Super Bowling

2008-01-29T22:12:00.000-08:00

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.

Heath Ledger, Dead at 28

2008-01-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Is that Glen Rice or R. Kelly?

2008-01-11T20:33:00.001-08:00

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

Travesty

2008-01-08T19:47:00.001-08:00

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

Bring Back My Writers!

2008-01-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

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

Money, Money, Money.......Money

2007-12-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

It of course is that time of year again where everyone wants to complain about the College Football Championship system. should LSU be in the Championship game? Is THE Ohio State University really worthy after playing such a creampuff schedule? Wouldn't either USC or Oklahoma kick both teams collective asses with their starting Quarterbacks healthy? These are all valid questions. But the question everyone seems to ask and no one seems to answer honestly is; why can't we settle this with a tournament? You'll the ADs and Head Coaches give the same horse shit answers, they'll claim that the season would be too long and that we're dealing with student athletes who actually need to go to class. Well let's be honest, they don't really NEED to go to class, in fact I doubt very highly that more than 5% of the "student-athletes" make it to all their spring classes when the season is over. If a tournament can't happen, then how do Division I-AA, Division II, and Division III all figure out how to make it work? The reason that the bowl system is still in tact and that we can't figure out who the real national champion is every year is the same reason that the United States is so reliant on oil. Money! More specifically it's because the people in power don't want to redistribute the wealth. It's not that there wouldn't be more money involved with a tournament which determined the national title. The television revenue would be through the roof, they could have a huge bidding war with multi-billion dollar contracts. The problem is that the money would have to be given to the schools in the MAC and the WAC, not just the six power conferences. Sure, Boise St. and Hawaii have gotten their hands on a small share of the big prize in the last couple years, but that is still a rarity. The truth is that if the eliminated the traditional bowl system, even the teams in power would probably make more money with a tournament, they could figure out ways to include the bowls by letting them host certain tournament games. Of course the people from the Big Ten or The Pac Ten would never vote against their old cronies at the Rose Bowl. So what's best for the game, and what's best for the NCAA as a whole has to take a back seat to what's best for the people who already have the money and the power. Maybe that's why College Football is the most popular game in the red states.

Okay, enough for my heavy handed diatribe. It was heart-breaking for me to see Boston College lose in the ACC Championship against Virginia Tech. Boston College outplayed VaTech in the the first half, but somehow managed to go into half-time tied at 16. This was a very bad sign and the bad vibes came to fruition when Virginia Tech scored two late touchdowns to run away with it in the end. Maybe it was just good kharma for VT who suffered that tragedy last April, or maybe it was bad kharma for Boston College who for all intents and purposes chased away a succesful coach who ran far and away the most academically sound program in the country. Who knows what forces made things go the way they did, but it was a crushing defeat for any BC fan because the Eagles probably won't be getting back there anytime soon. They have only one more game in the Matt Ryan era, who in terms of college performance is probably the second best player to call Chestnut Hill home. It's not very often that the Eagles have the best anything in college football, let alone the best Quarterback. I've enjoyed the way BC played this year, and Jeff Jagodzinski seems like a good guy, more suited for the college game than the pros, but the jury is still out on how well Coach Jags will do at building a program by recruiting top talents and coaching them up. He had a great year with Tom O'Brien's old troops, I just hope he can keep it going and build on this year's success.

One other thing in the news, Johan. I have to admit that trading for Santana is the smart move. I'd rather not trade Ellsbury, Lester, and Buchholz, but even if it took all three to make the deal, it would probably be the right move. Deep down I'm hoping for one of two scenarios. First scenario involves santana being traded to some team that the sox barely ever play, i.e. Los Angeles or Seattle. The Dodgers would be my first choice, that way the only time Santana could hurt the sox would be the very unlikely world series showdown. Supposedly both of these teams are in the hunt, and even if Seattle got him, I don't think they'd have enough to be a force in the AL. The next acceptable scenario would involve the Yankees having to give up all of their young players for Santana. If they had to give up Hughes, Chamberlain, Kennedy and Melky, I'd have faith in the Sox to be able to beat them in the playoffs even if not in the regular season. (Maybe throw in Cano as well.) Granted this would give the Yanks the ace they've lacked for years and it becomes scarier with today's news that andy Pettite will be back; but the Sox could still beat them. A-Rod is still the guy who chokes every year, Jeter is still the most overrated "star" in baseball and it's not like Sanatana was unhittable last year. The most fun part of this scenario would be watching the Yankees deplete their farm system all over again and keep grabbing up all the veterans with high price tags whose careers are headed for a nosedive soon. I enjoy watching the Yankees with the four highest paid players in baseball come up short, so next year could be fun if they trade for Johan, maybe just for my kicks he could blow out his arm or something. I guess my greater point is that I'll enjoy the Red Sox more next season if they're being helped by a bunch of younger homegrown talent than if they bring in the latest great mercenary.

That's all I've got for today other than to say that no matter what anybody says, Jennifer Love Hewitt is fine as hell. I also wanted to throw out the link to Funny or die. It's a constant source of enjoyment fo me. Also, for anyone who is really bored out there yuo can play these great games, Raft wars, or Age of War. They are both a phenomenal waste of time.

Til next time...

-Bender Out

I know it's early, but...

2007-11-15T07:54:00.000-08:00

So I finally made the leap this year and bought the NBA Season Pass. I've wanted to buy it for a few years now but always backed off because I wasn't sure that I'd really actually watch the games. Anyway, given the way The Celtics are playing early, I feel like I'm going to have the most exciting NBA season in years. So here's my early opinions on the season.

The new look Celtics are way better than I had imagined they'd be. You'd be hard pressed to find any Celtic fan who will admit to being against trading for KG, although a poll last summer was about 50/50. A few years back I heard Charles Barkley doing an interview on the radio and the interviewer asked Sir Charles who the most underrated players were in the NBA. I think the interviewer wanted Charles to name some Celtics players but Charles said the most underrated players in the NBA are the very best players. Most fans don't understand the difference between the very elite and some guy who just puts up good numbers. Well Charles was absolutely right, I had no idea how good KG was. I thought he'd be a great inside presence, he'd get his 20 and 10, but I had no idea how dominant he could be as a defender and rebounder; he brings his teammates to a whole other level. Garnett is a great passer, the best on this year's Celtics, and on defense he's a game changer. Having a player on Garnett's level has made Paul Pierce better; you throw in a marksman like Ray Allen who is now seeing more open shots than he's seen in the last five years combined, and you have the look of a title contender. Granted, this team hasn't faced any adversity, and things could totally change, but I do think it's time for a nickname for the new three. The PGA tour is kinda clever but not quite catchy enough and most people would be thinking of the real PGA Tour when it gets mentioned. Other early suggestion have been The GAP, The GAP band, W-KRP in Boston, so I think it's important that our greatest minds come up with a real nickname for them going forward.

One last Celtics note before I give my early impressions on the young NBA season. This week there was a serious war of words between Cedric Maxwell and Larry Bird. Max is the radio announcer for the C's and Larry Bird, for those of you who don't know, is the greatest player to ever lace up a pair of Converse. Well Max went on the radio last week and declared KG to be the second best Celtic of all-time, behind Bill Russell. This is just the latest salty remark by Max who is still upset over the way he left Boston in 1985. Red Auerback and Larry Bird always thought Max quit during the 84-85 season, then Red traded Max for Bill Walton who had one last great season in him. Well Max has been hurting ever since, He likes to come on the radio in Boston and declare that Hakeem Olajuwon was the best player he ever played with, he also said that Dirk Nowitzki is better than Bird ever was. Well Larry isn't gonna take crap from anyone; during the Celtics-Pacers game Tuesday night the sideline reporter asked Larry's thoughts on Max's latest shot and Bird wasn't taking the high road, he just said "Well Max quit on us and he'll probably quit on them too." Classic Bird! Someone should get a hold of Max's PR rep and tell him to put a lid on it before the whole city turns against him; people in boston like Max, but they love Larry.

Ok, so onto my quick thoughts for the NBA that I can only have because of the Season Pass.

-Jared Dudley and Sean Williams started out the season riding the pine but quickly their coaches smartened up and have been increasing their minutes. Williams especially has proven that he belongs in the NBA. Watching last night's Celtics-Nets game, it was obvious that Williams should be getting the bulk of the minutes for the Nets at the five spot.

-My favorite team to watch is the Memphis Grizzlies. Rudy Gay is really emerging as an All-Star caliber player and has finally begun to assert himself. It's highly doubtful that they'll come close to the playoffs, but they're fun to watch nonetheless. I really enjoy watching Mike Miller play, he's an unapologetic gunner, he's a really good shooter and for some reason he's decided that he wants to grow his hair out and be confused for a WNBA player instead of going with his old trailer park look.

-If I ever feel a sentimental longing for the sad old pathetic Celtics of the last couple years, I can just turn on a T-Wolves game. They have many of the same players the Celtics used to have, including an old and out of shape Antoine Walker, and they're coming up with the same results. Watching Al Jefferson from an unbiased point of view is interesting as well, I can't believe how lost he seems on defense sometimes. He still has great touch and nice moves inside, but he's a long way from being a difference maker in the league.

-I've been able to catch a couple Blazers games thus far, and I'm thinking they'll surprise a bunch of teams this year. Similar to many young teams, they're a lot better at home than they are on the road, but they have such a great young nucleus right now. LaMarcus Alldredge is already better than I ever envisioned him being. He's more athletic than I realized and has seemingly bought into the idea of strength and conditioning, he looks to be a bit leaner; also he has developed great touch on his midrange jumper, a key for any succesful NBA power forward. The comparisons to Rasheed still seem a bit premature, but I'm starting to see all the potential everyone else saw three years ago at Texas.

- As for the rookies around the league, I was a big supporter of Yi coming in. I have no complaints with the way things worked out for the Celtics, but if they had kept the 5th pick, I wanted them to take Yi and he seems to be the most pleasant surprise as far as early returns go. Jeff Green has been pretty good so far for the Sonics, but I think his polished game is being wasted in the mess that is Seattle this year. At some point Green will be a contributor for a good team in the NBA, but I doubt he'll ever be an All-Star. It's just a shame that Greem isn't playing for a playoff caliber team right now, because he's definitely ready to play in meaningful games. His teammate Kevin Durant has put up big numbers but looks very selfish and one dimensional. It remains to be seen if his huge self-confidence will develop into that of an assertive superstar or if it will lead him to be an over confident locker room cancer. Durant does show some great offensive moves and other flashes at times, but he just isn't ready to be a star in the NBA, and it seems like expectations were way too high.

That's all I've got for now, just remember that the Celtics, Red Sox and Patriots are undefeated since October 16th.

-Bender Out

You're an Asterisk!

2007-11-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

Well, my fan has been bothering me, wondering what happened to the mighty Bender, so after much trepidation I have come back to make the blogging world right again. In my absence Boston has become the sports capital of the world. The Red Sox won their second title in four years. The Patriots juggernaut rolls along destroying everything in its path. The Celtics have opened up the season 2-0 behing the strength of the Triumverate. BC football was undefeated and featuring a Heisman candidate, but as of last saturday that pretty much came to an end. Also, let us not overlook that the mighty BU Terriers have been picked to win the America East Conference and could get the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. And now, at the behest of my one fan, finally The Bender has come back to the blogosphere!

It hasn't all been rosy on the Boston sports scene. I wasn't around to defend The Pats during the down times back in September when the sports world turned on them out of jealousy and ignorance. I refer of course to spy-gate or camera-gate or whatever we've decided should be the name for this scandalous event. My only real defense of the Patriots for this one is that a) Having tapes of the other teams defensive signals doesn't allow you to know the play call before the play happens, and b) this was a far more common practice than anyone realizes, teams still make these tapes, they just have to make them from the press box as opposed to from the sidelines. So now Don Shula has taken a break from his nutri-system campaign to weigh in on the possibility of a 19-0 run by the Patriots. Coach Shula thinks that if the Patriots do have a perfect season there should be an asterisk next to their record. To me it just sounds like Donny boy needs his depends diaper changed. I think he's a little cranky and the perfect season is his last grip at relevance. Maybe there should an asterisk next to the Dolphins perfect season because Mercury Morris was so heavily medicated during those games. I don't really care what Shula thinks about the Patriots legacy. I know that this is really just a desperate attempt for Old Don to keep his own legacy great, the truth is that comments like this one by Shula will just make it more likely that the Pats will reach their 19-0 destiny. It's them against the world, and The Patriots wouldn;t have it any other way.

The other controversy surrounding The Pats has been the opinion of many observers that The Pats like to run up the score. Gregg Easterbrook from ESPN.com has been especially critical, (on a side note I believe he's going to appear on Oprah any day now.) Easterbrook has come and basicaly called The Pats the axis of evil, he stopped just short of comparing Belichick to Joseph Stalin. Anyway, all these critics should remember, this isn;t Pop Warner. These are professional athletes, it isn;t Bill Belichicks job to stop the Pats offense, it's the job of the millionaires who line up against them. I'm sorry that The Cowboys couldn't stop the great Kyle Eckel and that the Redskins couldn;t figure out how to stop Matt Cassel. It's neither here no there. It just fuels the fire inside the hearts of the greatest team ever assembled.

That's all I've really got to comment on, but I've decided to give a couple links to my favorite viral videos that I've seen lately. First we've got LArry King asking Jerry Seinfeld if NBC had cancelled his show. Jerry doesn;t exactly handle it gracefully, some may call it mean spirited, but I just call it funny as hell. You can see it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZfUgVSfKdQ

Also we have my second favorite clip that I just discovered, although it may have been around forever. I give you the techno viking.

That's all for now.

-Bender Out

You Can't Handle The Truth

2007-08-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Finally The Bender has come back to the blogosphere!

I've missed a lot over the last month, and I'll take the time at some point to catch up on all of it, but right now I'm gonna focus on Major League Baseball and Barry Bonds.

I'm gonna come at this from all angles, first things first, how do I feel about Barry Bonds having the record? It really doesn't bother me. In some ways it just how ridiculous it is to compare different eras to one another. Baseball is the sport where the analysts have the audacity to pretend that nothing has changed. They still held tight to Babe Ruth's career marks and ignored the fact that African Americans weren't allowed to play in the major leagues before 1947. Maybe Josh Gibson is the real all-time home run king, but we'll never know. The point is that it's really just a number, Hank Aaron still had the same career he ever had. In some ways maybe we'll all benefit from this event because we won't have to hear about every record that ever existed and we don;t have to pretend that hitting a 310 foot homer off Cy Young was the same as hitting a 400 foot homer off of Casey Fossum. I hope Barry Bonds ends up with over 800 home runs and the Peter Gammons' of the world have to cry themselves to sleep every night knowing that the game of baseball if only for one moment was actually flawed.

The most disturbing part of Bonds' record run is the fact that it's quickly become one of the most racially divisive issues since the OJ trial. The truth is that I don't necessarily get it, to me it seems obvious that Bonds used steroids, and even if every other player of this era used steroids, that doesn;t change the fact that Bonds has admitted to using (if only by accident.) I was talking to an African American gentleman in a bar the night that Barry tied the all-time mark of 755, and while he did give some incites into succesful marriages, (apparently it involves whipped cream and strawberries.) We also had to engage in a very awkward conversation about how Barry was a victim, and you don;t see anyone going after Roger Clemens, and I nodded in agreement, not only on the issues of Barry being a victim and Roger Clemens not being under scrutiny, but also on the positive effects of whipped cream and strawberries on a marriage. I wasn;t going to get into a debate about Barry in a bar because for some reason it way too serious of an issue to this gentleman. I don;t understand the vitriol on either side, why would people get so worked up over Barry Bonds in any way. The truth I'll never understand this issue and I'm giving up on understanding it even quicker than I made the similar decision back in 1994 with Orenthal James.

The second most disturbing issue for me has been Bud Selig's "hard stance." A lot of people in the media have been applauding or supporting Bud's choice not attend all of Barry's games as he went for the record, after all he had made a "Herculean effort" to see it but attending more than five games was way out of the question. Selig's stance here has been ridiculously hypocritical. It's not quite up there with the closeted homosexual preachers who condemn homosexuality, but it's right up there. (On a side note, 300 came out on DVD this week and it's definitely worth checking out.) Anyway, Selig sat by and watched as steroids took hold of his beloved game and now he refuses to reap what he sewed. You can't stand by and let steroids and homeruns hotshot your league back to popularity and then become indignant when ones of the many steroid users you helped promote takes over your record book. Guess what Bud, you have no right to take a stand now, this is the modern day Faust, bud made his deal with the devil but now he wants his soul back, it's too late.

This brings me to my theory as to why so many people hold such anger for Barry. He is the ultimate symbol of how Steroids took over Major League Baseball for over a ten year period, and maybe even longer than we ever imagined. Jose Canseco won the MVP in 1988 because of steroids, Ken Caminiti won his steroid fueled MVP in 1996. These are just the players who have admitted it. And the baseball lovers are scrambling to cut this epidemic off at the pass so they can claim it was an anomoly. Peter Gammons has been the worst offender. I've heard him on the radio chastising a fan who had the gaul to claim that Jason Giambi was using steroids again during his resurgence last season. Well, Peter, I know that Giambi's character is beyond reproach, but maybe just maybe he was cheating again. And these same defenders all applauded Rafael Palmeiro for proving he wasn;t on steroids by taking the offensive in front of congress, but then Palmeiro got caught a few months later. Of course Palmeiro was just another anomoly. In fact I'm sure Peter Gammons is still convinced that only the players who've been caught by the new steroid testing are the players who used during their careers. They ignore the fact that Barry Bonds was never caught.

Like I said before, I don't care if Bonds used steroids, but cut the crap, I'd say that more than half of the league used steroids at one point. So don't tell me that the problem has been solved, and don't pretend that it wasn't an epidemic. Steroids still rule baseball, and if we can accept that we can sit back and enjoy the games, we can each pretend that our favorite team is the only one without cheaters. But if we're going to accuse Bonds we just have be prepared to accept it when we hear the whole truth about what has gone on for the last 20 years.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

2007-07-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-07-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

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

It's Getting Drafty

2007-06-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

Time for my latest explanation as to why I've taken such a long time between posts, and this one is elaborate. After hearing that the NHL finals set a record for lowest ratings ever in prime-time for NBC. I thought back to all the awful things that were ever on in prime time for NBC and it hit me. Me and Mrs C! A young Black Female moves in with an old white woman, the black girl has a checkered past but wants to straighten out her life by living with this old white women who has taken her in as a boarder. It must have been pitched as the Golden Girls meets Diff'rent Strokes. The pilot featured this odd couple bonding over the song Just a Gigolo which was both a classic, and a new hit by David Lee Roth. Anyway, the show was total crap, but I fell into a deep depression when I realized that a million times as many people wanted to watch that crap compared to the number of people who wanted read my blog. The only thing that pulled me out of my depression was this NBA draft.

For a long time The NBA draft has been my favorite sporting event, aside from the Super Bowl. In High School I used to write up my little mock drafts, trying to come up with ways that the Celtics could get the great Terry Dehere out of Seton Hall and then in subsequent years I predicted many scenarios to help out my beloved Celtics. One year I doctored my mock draft to get Ray Allen with the sixth pick overall, and now ten short years later after Ray Ray is all washed up, the Celts have gone out and acquired Ray Allen. This to me is the straw that broke the Camel's back. Danny Ainge has got to go. Ray just doesn;t quite fit with the Celtics, they needed defensive help, and he doesn;t play defense. But the biggest problem with this deal is the Celtics are giving up their future just so they can make it to the second round of the playoffs next Spring. This is the type of deal that has kept the Celtics from competing for a title for at least the last seventeen years. I can see their future clearly, The Celtics will win a playoff series next spring and then take their second round opponent to the brink before bowing out, in the 2009 playoffs the Celtics will be narrowly beaten in the first round. After that season Allen will leave as a free Agent, the Celtics will miss the playoffs, they'll slink back into utter mediocrity. And then the organization will ask us to be patient while the prime of Al Jefferson's career slips away similar to the way that Paul Pierce's did before him. The Celtics have become the laughing stock of draft day for the second straight year.

The deal was extra painful because the C's had to give up Delonte West, the only player on their entire roster who has any heart. But enough with the negative, lets move onto the positive. The Celtics were able to draft Gabe Pruitt and Glen Davis early in the second round. Pruitt was being talked about as a mid-first round pick just a couple weeks ago so I have to feel good about them grabbing him at this point. As for Davis, I'd have much rather the Celtics selected Josh McRoberts, I've been very critical of Davis in the past, mostly because I understand fat people being one myself, and I have a hunch that Davis will never get his weight under control. But now that he's a Celtic I'm going to put a positive spin on this one, he has an amazing upside for a second round pick, plus Jay Bilas delivered the line of the night about Big Baby, comparing his weight loss ability to that of Oprah.

The next big positive of the draft for me was that both Boston College players were drafted in the first round. Sean Williams could be the biggest steal of this draft if everything works out, and he'll fit in very well with the Nets, he may even be a double digit scorer as long as Jason Kidd is there. As for Jared Dudley, I think he'll work out all right with the Bobcats, but I'm still not sure about the Bobcats plan of drafting the most polished products they can find with every pick. I think this method will lead to them battling for the eighth spot in the playoffs every year. This is the first time in NBA draft history that BC has had two players drafted in the first round. BC may not be a dynasty but they're a proud franchise, and this is a special moment for them.

As for the big winners around the league, first and foremost is the Portland Trailblazers. The Oden thing was obvious, but the trade of Zach Randolph to the Knicks is a great move as well. Randolph was a ticking time bomb, and you don;t want him so much as talking to Greg Oden. Also I liked their pick of Josh McRoberts in the second round. I think he could be a good back-up for them, which is more than you can expect with a second round pick. With Oden, Channing Frye, LaMarcus Aldridge and McRoberts they could have their front court rotation set for years. They just need to find a point guard and they'll be ready to compete for a title in 2010. They also just bought a pick from Phoenix, where they received Rudy Fernandez, not a bad thing when your owner just buys a pick from another team, kinda makes me wish the Celtics had bought the pick for Rajon Rondo last year.

The other big trade during the draft was Charlotte acquiring Jason Richardson in exchange for Brandan Wright. I really don;t like this trade for either team. The Bobcats are now counting on J-Rich to be their go to guy, but he's really not good enough to lead them anywhere, and now Golden State is counting on Stephen Jackson to be their two guard next year. Brandan Wright has a tremendous upside and he could be the top power forward to lead them into the future, but thats a couple years off and Baron Davis' career could be over by then. I just don;t think That Charlotte will ever get anywhere without taking some chances on guys like Brandan Wright. I was pleasantly surprised when they took him, even a little bit shocked, but it was too good to be true.

Another team who will end up disappointed is the Sonics. They made a nice move dealing Allen for the fifth pick even if they did have to take on Wally's contract, but then they drafted a guy who plays the same position as their future franchise player. I would've liked Jeff Green for a team picking around ten or twelve, but I don;t think he has the upside of a top five pick, especially not in this loaded draft. The other thing that will be disappointing for the Seattle fans is the over-hyping of Durant. He'll probably be an all-star a couple years from now, but never will he live up to the billing he's gotten coming into this draft.

The three top ten picks out of Florida will all be letdowns in the NBA. Horford will lack the athleticism to compete in the NBA, Brewer will be too inconsistent and Noah's lack of skills will catch up to him. The team was so much more talented than other college teams that their flaws could be covered by the teams dominance as a whole.

In a few years when analysts look back at this draft the strength will definitely be in the depth, but not in the stars it produces. Oden will become the superstar franchise center and Durant will be an all-star but none of the other high picks will pan out as superstars. With maybe the exceptions of Yi or Brandan Wright who could become anything from total busts all the way up perennial all-stars and maybe even MVP candidates.

Anyway, I've put out all my predictions and analysis so that I can be ridiculed for years to come. Until then...

-Bender Out

The Revolution Will Be Televised

2007-06-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Has the Lebron James era officially begun? For the last five years I've had an ongoing debate as to whether or not the hype has been too high for King James. I waffle back and forth because I'm a huge Lebron fan, but no one his age could possibly perform up to the incredible expectations and hype he's had since first gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated as a High School junior. But after his domination of the Pistons over the last two weeks I think Lebron is finally performing as the next true elite superstar of the NBA. Culminating with the incredible performance in Game Five, Lebron was completely dominant and electric, especially in the way he silenced every one of his critics who were trying to crucify him after his pass off in game one and his missed game winner while being mugged by Rip Hamilton in Game Two. The critics were as loud as they'd ever been and Lebron completely dominated Game Three which was only a prelude to his greatness in Game Five. His 29 out of Cleveland's last 30 points to end the game has to rank as one of the all-time greatest performances in NBA history. So finally he has delivered on all the promise that he showed on his way to the top. I don;t think he's quite ready to knock Tim Duncan off his throne and declare himself the best in the world, but it does just seem to be a matter of time until he takes his place where only Duncan, Shaq, Jordan, Hakeem, Magic and Larry have stood in the last 25 years, and no one else.

As far as the elimination of the Pistons goes, I'm always torn when it comes to them. I love the fact that they one a championship without one single elite superstar, and I love that they never had to win the lottery to get to the top, and they gradually built themselves up over the years without having to bottom out, but I hate them as a team. Aside from Antonio McDyess, I find them all to be more and more unlikeable every time I watch them. Rip Hamilton is a good player who thinks he is great, same goes for Chauncey Billups. Neither should really be a lock to be an all-star every season but because they're part of a really strong team they get greatly overrated. Rasheed Wallace had the skills to be a superstar but his head got in the way. In his opinion he's never actually committed a foul, and he's never missed a shot without being fouled. When 'Sheed was a freshman at UNC, coming in from Philly as the top High Schooler in the country, the sky was the limit, and there have been times when he's shown flashes of being a top ten NBA player, but he just never made it happen, mostly because he has the temprament of a petulant child. Tayshaun Prince is a very good role player, but for some reason he was being hyped as an all-star. All-Star? I don't think so. I heard Reggie Miller openly complain about Paul Pierce being named an all-star in '06 over Prince, the whole idea was ludicrous. If Prince were a Celtic there would never have been any tanking controversy this year. The Celtics could have finished in last without ever having to lose any game intentionally. You take all these overrated players and combine them with an annoying PA guy shouting "De-Troooit, Bas-Ket-Baaaaallllll" and you have a thouroughly unlikeable squad, and it also pissed me off that they got away with one of the worst draft day blunders in recent history, but the straw that broke the Camel's back for me was the night that one of they were helped out immensely by the Ron artest incident. Ben Wallace attacks Ron Artest to start the whole thing, then a drunken idiot throws a drink at Artest and the next thing ya know, The Pistons could punch their ticket to the Finals. As far as I'm concerned this group can't fall aprt fast enough, they more than have it coming.

In the rest of the sports spectrum I wanted to give a quick take on a couple of mini-controversies swirling these days. Gary Sheffield's reasoning for why there aren't more African-American players in Major League Baseball was ridiculous. To me the people who he was insulting most with his comments were African Americans. To say that they don;t make it to the majors because they can't be controlled the way latin ballplayers can strikes me as stupid. The sad truth is that in most other fields you're going to be controlled if you want to be succesful. We all have bosses to answer to on our way up to the top, and 99% have to fall in line, it's a sad truth of being an adult in this country. I can't just go around bad-mouthing my employer and doing whatever I want. If anything professional baseball players have a lot more leeway when it comes to being controlled and these comments by Sheffield are exhibit A. If he was a normal american and came out and said that his employers were members of a racist organization he'd probably be looking for a new job, but instead he's making about 15 mil this year. If I can make fifteen mil but it means I need to be controlled, just tell me where to sign up, I'm ready to take orders.

The second little controversy has mroe or less come and gone, but I wanted to comment about the aftermath of A-Rod and his stripper friend. He was wronged to be singled out, similar to the way that Barry bonds has been wronged by being singled out as the only juicer. Yes A-Rod ommitted the crime, but he's not the only one and it definitely shouldn;t be on the cover of any newspaper. I did enjoy the aftermath where we got a profile of his blonde stripper friend, she's apparently kinda jacked, leading one jealous stripper to claim that A-Rod likes the muscular shemale type (which has been blown out of proportion.) A lot of very phyically fit people go for the muscular type women, it doesn;t lend any creedance to the theories of him and Jeter although all us Boston fans would like think it does. Anyway, this whole thing does come down to jealousy. Jealousy that this guy does what he wants, jealousy that he can bang strippers, jealousy that this stripper is getting to play with Alex's money. The A-rod hating should stop, especially when a lot of the people are hating for the wrong reasons.

Just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that the Red Sox are awesome. That's all I've got for now, Til next time...

-Bender Out

Dammit All

2007-05-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-05-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-05-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

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

So Sad to Say Goodbye

2007-04-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

Time for another exciting edition of The Bender, and sadly this will probably be the last time that I get to talk about little Sanjaya Malakar. Sanjaya, the boy who single-handedly saved this season of American Idol. He was like William Hung, Kelly Pickler, Kevin Covais and Justin Guarini all rolled into one (ok, maybe not Kelly Pickler.) Every week he would bring something new and exciting to the show, mostly through his hair styles, but also with his poor singing and his ability to take in Simon's attacks without losing his innocence. The aforementioned Covais was doing great last year until he decided to fight back, as if he actually thought his singing warranted his presence on the show. Anyway, I don;t know if I'll watch this week's Idol, between their constant patting of themselves on the back over the idea that they might give a little something to the less fortunate and with Sanjaya out of the picture I may need to take this week off. I actually felt really bad for Sanjaya when he got voted off, he seemed so crushed, it just reminded me that he's only seventeen. When I was seventeen I couldn;t have possibly handled the beating that he's been taking publicly, he even was the victim of a very unfunny parody on Saturday Night Live a couple weeks back. I'm all for comedy, but when it isn;t even that funny you might as well give the kid a break.

Before I get off the subject of American Idol, I want to say that I must be getting very cynical in my old age. I can;t help but view this whole Idols gives back as a giant co-opting of the people in need. I feel like the People at American Idol are going to make a ton of money for themselves while trumpeting the nice chunk of change that they're donating to young people in need both in Africa and in The US. Granted, this money wouldn't be going to these people who definitely need the help, but let us not forget the impetus for this show is not completely altruistic. At the very least they are making the American Idol brand more profitable, but more than likely they will profit off this individual act of "charity" as well. I'm tired in general of these people who have more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes (and that's taking into account inflation) but they can't stop kissing their own asses for making a large donation. By the way I wanted to congratulate Oprah for fully funding one school in Africa. I may have given away a larger portion of my income the time I gave Mr. Butch my change outside of Store 24 last month.

On a totally unrelated note, I watched the Jonestown documentary on PBS last week, and it was an incredible story. I've never been a fan of documentaries, I've always suspected that it was because I'm not very bright, but anyway, this may have been the most enthralling hour and a half of television watching I ever experienced. While many may construe that as faint praise but remember that I've watched every episode of Lost the last three years, so I take my television very seriously. So I guess this is my recommendation for the week, put that documentary on top of your Netflix queue. I might try to get the rights to this story so I can turn it into an Oscar winning flick, I know I could get Kevin Spacey to play Jim Jones in hope of winning an Oscar, this is why I should be in the movie business, there's a fortune to be made here. But I guess the studios would rather re-make Rear Window or put out crap like Vacancy.

One last note about new movies, it seems the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie is turning out to be a huge flop. This is terrible news, not because I'm necessarily a huge fan of the show, but this definitely means it'll harder to get a full movie of The Venture Bros. Which would be a great choice for the next Cartoon Network show to make it to the theaters. I sometimes feel like ATHF has trouble filling up a full 15 minute show without boring me, so I don;t know who thought it would make a good movie, but Venture Brothers has continuing plot lines that almost fill out a movie in its current half hour format. While we're on the subject, go out and buy the second season of Venture Bros. It just come out on DVD this week. So that's my second DVD recommendation for this week, I might have a legitimite DVD addiction going on, I've spent the last week trying to figure out if I lost my copy of Ordinary People or if I just never bought one, this has to be some sort of sign.

Wanted to comment on a couple sports stories from the last week. First, Drew Bledsoe retired, he never really got his due here in the Boston area. He was a damn good quarterback for the Patriots for a nine years, and aside from Tom Brady he was the most important player in franchise history. Bledsoe isn't quite up to Hall of Fame standards, although now that Warren Moon is in there, he wouldn't be the worst QB to be in. Hopefully the Pats fans will finally appreciate him for all that he did, if not he'll just have to go home and roll around in his piles and piles of money, Drew retires having the highest career earnings of any player in NFL history.

The other sports story I wanted to comment on is the official beginning of the baseball season, the first Sox-Yankees series. The story of the series through two games, aside from the Sox winning, has to be A-Rod's incredible start. He seems to have slimmed down and added a good amount of muscle in his legs. I remember about eight years ago when another superstar re-dedicated himself through off-season conditioning, that stars name was Barry Bonds. I'm not gonna come out and accuse A-Roid of anything just yet, but it's rare to see someone his age gain a bunch of muscle without losing any bat speed. Understand that these sorts of things don;t really bother me, I'm not the type to bring up that the Sox may have won two world series in a row had it not been for Jason Giambi's steroid fueled homers in game seven of the ALCS in 2003. I just like pointing out evidence that steroids are still very prevalent in MLB, and this is just the latest piece of evidence. Many of the purists want to just point the finger at Barry Bonds ignoring all the evidence at so many other stars, btw how is that Sammy Sosa comeback going? I'm glad to see he got over the initial scare and is now back with his old friend the hypodermic needle.

Thats all I've got for now, I'm sure I'll be back soon with another load of my normal crap, til then.

-Bender Out

So It Goes

2007-04-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

I just found out that Kurt Vonnegut has died, now I'm not what you'd call a "reader", but if I have a favorite writer, it's him. He was basically the only guy whose books I bought just because he'd written them. In High school I was never really able to grasp what my teachers were talking about in terms of a writer's personal style, but it becamo so clear to me when I read Slaughter-House Five. In the interest of full disclosure, I only started reading it because I thought that was the type of book that a smart, artistic person would read. To be sure, most people would agree I was considered neither of those back in high school (and probably still not.) His writing really did change my life, if only a tiny bit. His stories were interesting and imaginative, but the writing was brilliant and enthralling, it was more about the journey than the destination. He is certainly deserving of a small tribute before I get on to my usual gibberish. He died yesterday, so it goes.

Speaking of my usual gibberish, American Idol has been going on and I haven;t been keeping up. The last two weeks have been sub-par for me. I definitely wasn't a fan of the Tony Bennett week, although most of the contestants are best suited for such songs, that doesn't mean it's fun for me to listen to it. Rock Chick, Gina Glocksen got voted off which was a bit of a downer, I usually enjoy the contestants who think of themselves as rockers first, I love seeing them try to keep their rock cred every week while singing watered down versions of songs that can't really be captured in a minute and thirty seconds. It was sad to see her go when we could have gotten rid of Phil Stacey, who seems like a nice guy but really doesn;t bring anything to the table. As bad as last week was, this week was a slap in the face. The music didn't fit the skills of the two talented singers, and I'm really starting to fear that this Blake Lewis kid might win, everyone keeps gushing over him but he's awful. Latin music is fun, and it gave Sanjaya yet another look to go for during his performance, but it's not really made for these type of singers who want to turn every song into a ballad and specialize in the Patti LaBelle ending to songs but not much else. I watched both shows, mostly just to see what Sanjaya was gonna do, and also to see what Haley would wear (she looked sexy on both shows this week btw.) Tonight she showed an ample bosom to go along with those long legs, perhaps her legs had distracted me from all the other fine aspects of her figure, I noticed this just before she got voted off!! How could the voters betray me like that? Don't they understand that the hottest girl should be kept on right up until the point where there are only great singers to keep on instead? These rules apply to the train wreck that is Sanjay as well. I'll even let you guys keep that damn Blake Lewis on, but that means that Phil Stacey and Chris Richardson get the boot before the hot girl and the train wreck. I feel like I'm dealing with amateur hour here, who would rather watch Phil sing than Haley? It's completely ridiculous. They announced that next week is Country week. If I wasn't thrilled with the idea of seeing Sanjaya look ridiculous in a cowboy hat, I would boycott next week's show. But I swear, if Sanjaya gets the boot next, I'm not watching until they get a good genre and/or guest singer.

Ok, enough venting about Idol, I've been on a great run in terms of movie watching lately. In the last two weeks I've seen The Lookout, Blades of Glory, and Grindhouse in the theater and caught Layer Cake on video. And all of them delivered at least to expectations. Blades of Glory is not quite on the level of Anchorman or Talladega Nights, but it was pretty damn funny, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett were great as the bad guys and so was Jenna Fisher as their sister. The best of the movies though was The Lookout. It's definitely the best movie so far this year, I can;t recommend it highly enough. The plot sounds like a typical heist movie but the characters are a lot more interesting than most movies that get made these days, the plot may fit together a little too nicely at some points but it's both tense and emotional, and most movies can;t even pull off one of those things these days let alone both. Do yourself a favor, go see it. Anyway that's all I got.

-Bender Out

Great Oden's Raven

2007-04-04T12:36:00.000-07:00

The title is a quote from Anchorman, I know that it would be more fitting to go with a title that celebrated Florida given that they won the tourney, but I like this one better. Plus the whole "It's good...To Be...A Florida Gator" thing just doesn;t come through that well in print. Anyway, for my purposes, Oden was the main story because I don;t care as much about who wins these things as I do about who could possibly help the Celtics win a few playoff series in the next decade. I'm not trying to be greedy but winning three playoff series since Larry Bird retired is just not gonna cut it. But I digress, Oden looked frickin awesome and I want him more than ever. He had at least two incredible blocks that made me salivate plus he showed decent touch on his post moves and he's already a better free throw shoote than Tim Duncan or Shaq. The other big story from an NBA fans perspective was Corey Brewer emerging as the best pro prospect on the Florida. The hyperbole got a little bit out of control when Billy Packer started claiming that Brewer was effectively guarding both Oden and Conley on seperate plays. Neither Dennis Rodman nor Scottie Pippen could've pulled off that feet, and they're the two greatest defensive small forwards ever. Brewer is a fine player, but he's the type who fills out the highlite reels moreso than dominates a game. I also couldn;t help but notice he acts kinda like a douchebag on the court, to paraphrase John Thompson's comments after the game, it's a good thing they play so well on the court because otherwise their shenanigans drive me crazy. After a timeout half way through the first half he walked away from his own bench and started clapping towards the OSU players, then later in the game he wagged his finger in Oden's face after Oden went for a pump fake. Of course all of this was far more acceptable than seeing Noah perform his tired act in the midst of falling to the bottom of the lottery in next June's draft. The only way I will ever root fo Jo Noah is if he does his hair like Sanjaya (the ponytail mohawk) on draft night. Until he realizes that he needs that hairdo, I shall not root for him. The one thing that I kept thinking during the broadcast monday night was, when did Lenny Kravitz get so old?

The main point of discussion for fans of college basketball should be , where does this Florida team rank in terms of all-time greats? Obviously they can;t be too high on the list because the dynamics of the college game have changed so much in the last twenty years, but given the fact that they one two in a row they have to be considered as better than any team this decade. They really played well together, they all knew their roles and were willing to let their teammates shine if the situation called for it, but I have trouble imagining this team being able win championships back in the early 90s. Certainly the Duke team who won back to back was better. I think that the UNLV teams of those years were a lot better as well. They were actually very similarly put together, but UNLV had Larry Johnson back when he was an explosive force and Greg Anthony was easily better than either Taurean Green or Lee Humphrey. Couls this Florida team have beaten the '93 UNC Tarheels? I think they would've had a shot but I still would take UNC if I was a betting man. All that being said, this team has officially put Florida on the map as a basketball power from this point forward. I was amazed to hear that Florida hadn't made the tournament before twenty years ago. I believe that was back in the days os the M&M boys, Vernon Maxwell and Andrew Moten, not even sure if Dwayne Schintzius was on the scene yet. but starting with Lon Kruger's run in the Early 90s and now with Billy Donovan leading them to two titles and a runner-up in 2000 they have been the most succesful south of Durham, NC.

The other subplot revolves around Billy Donovan's future with the team. I gotta believe that he'll hang around. Sure Kentucky is offering a bit more money, but there's something to be said for creating a national powerhouse that will last for a long time. Kentucky already has it's coaching legends, but Donovan could be to Florida what Coach K is to Duke. He could be the one true legend that created the program, he'll have plenty of money to live comfortably for the rest of his life and someday they'll name the arena after him. none of that can ever be his in Kentucky, and although they'll be rebuilding next year, they'll be a contender again just as easily as he could build UK into a contender.

On a final note, Billy Packer used the term "fag" on the Charlie Rose show last week, and I want him fired from announcing for CBS. I'm not a very PC person, and I think it's ridiculous that someone in his position would throw out that term in a normal conversation or interview. But really I just want him fired because I think he takes away from the broadcast, he seemingly takes the wrong side on most debates and sometimes during instant replays I honestly believe that he isn;t watching the monitor, perhaps signalling to a vendor instead. So I'm gonna try to use this incident to get Packer out fo there. Who's with me? No one? Oh well, in that case.

-Bender Out

Entertain Me!

2007-03-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I caught up on all my sports thoughts, so I have to get caught up on my entertainment thoughts from the past couple weeks.

First things first, American Idol has had a couple eliminations since I last talked about it. Last week Stephanie Edwards was voted off, and it didn't surprise me that much, strictly from a talent stand point she was probably in the top five, but she never really did it for me. Something about her personality rubbed me the wrong way, as iof she thought she was a lot better than she was, she also seemed a little to ready for the fame, and when you have that lack of likeability you'd better be blowing everyone away with your talent. As far as this weeks elimination of Chris Sligh, well he was kinda the opposite, he was really likeable but he wasn't that talented. His singing was good enough but I never really thought he had a chance because he was too much like Taylor Hicks. Similar contestants never seem to win back to back years, and I think most Idol fans realize that Taylor had no business winning and they couldn't repeat that mistake. I really enjoyed that Gwen Stefani was the celebrity guest this week, she would never make it to the second round in an Idol competition, but she's really hot, very personable and has a great pop sensibilitywhich is far more important for a popstar than straight forward singing talent has ever been. As for Sanjaya sticking around, I'm of the opinion that he's the best thing that ever happened to this year's edition of the show. I tune in to see four people, Lakisha and Melinda cause they sing so damn well, Haley because I've decided she has a great body and sanjaya, because he also has a great body. Wait, no, I meant Sanjaya because he's totally wacky, between his hair-dos and wacky performances it's alomost as if William hung were being brought back week after week. Plus he makes the other more mature contestants seem more legitimate. My real hope at this point is for Sanjaya and Haley to hang around longer than that fraud Blake Lewis, musically he's like a homeless man's JT (thank you, Bill Simmons.) I'm so utterly unimpressed by his performances, and it makes me cry when Simon reacts with anything other than scathing remarks for him. 311 isn;t looking for a new singer, so there's no need to completely bite their style, if goes on and wins this competetion, I swear I won;t watch any more Idol, at least not until next winter anyway.

Just after Idol ended there was another great episode of Lost. Since coming back from their hiatus Lost has had more than a couple episodes that were greatly entertaining, but had nothing to add to the big story. Wednesday's episode was the king of such episodes. It seemed to me like the writers had an old script they had submitted to the new Twilight Zone a few years back but it never made it to air. The episode was great as a one hour experience but it wasn't anything more. Simliar to the last Hurley episode, it was all filler, greatly entertaining filler, but still filler all the same. The worst part of this episode was that they killed off the Nikki character who was quickly emerging as the second hottest woman on the show. Sure Kate is still on the show, but lets say you're on this island, and you're a guy, who are you supposed to go after if you're not Jack or Sawyer? Maybe they can write someone else onto the show, but it's not looking good for the castaways.

All during my TV watching I saw a ton of ads for new movies coming out. since when did so many heavily hyped movies come out in March? Over the last two weeks they've realeased Shooter, Pride, TMNT, The Last Mimzy, Reign Over Me, The Lookout, Blades of Glory, and Meet The Robinsons. I feel like it's the middle of summer, they all had tons of ads, big stars and big hype. This is over two weeks, not to mention it comes on the heels of 300 and just before we get Grindhouse. I'd say that all of these movies are at least worthy of a DVD rental and I'd probably be willing to see TMNT, Reign Over Me and Shooter in the theater if there weren't so many better options right now. Robinsons looks pretty damn funny but it'll have to take a back seat to The Lookout and Blades of Glory which are bordering on must see for me. The Lookout sounds like my kinda movie to begin with but it's also getting great reviews. The best news, Isla Fisher is in it as well and she's damn sexy. As far as Blades fo Glory is concerned, I have yet to miss a Will Ferrell movie in the theaters, and I would never miss the opportunity to see Ferrell doing his Neil Diamond impersonation for an hour and a half.

The best news for me was that they previewed next years pilots on AOL today. It was like they wrote this article just for me. The top highlights on the list of pilots were Football Wives, The Sarah Conner Chronicles, and Cavemen. Football wives is based on the birtish series that was totally over the top, I've never seen Footballers' Wives but I've heard the stories. I expect that the plots wioll be toned way down, there will be a lot less homosexuality in the american version which has of course switched from soccer players to football players. My most bold prediction is that this show will be more successful than the CW series "The Game." That show also centered around football players wives and it was another flop in the storied career of the oh so sexy Brittany Daniel. Do you think Brittany ever walked on the set and longed for the great writing from the series Swan's Crossing? Now Swan's Crossing, that was a show.

The Sarah Conner chronicles is a new series that takes place in between the first two terminator movies. I don;t know if it's gonna be as great as it sounds just because it's tough to make a show like this live up to the movies given the low budget of television, but I'm glad to see them trying, if I had to describe this idea in one word that word would be "awesomeness." As far as the Caveman series goes, it's a full sit-com based on the characters in those Geico.com ads. I love the ads as much as anyone, but I find it hard to believe this show will be a hit. I'll be more than happy to watch all six episodes of the show, maybe I'll sit back and enjoy it while having the roast duck with the mango salsa. I was also excited that Carrie-Anne Moss will star in a new series, it sounds pretty cool, just a new way to approach a mystery, the show all the suspects and tell their version of what happened at the time of the crime. This show could be really cool if it's done right. The other cool things were that Parker Posey, Jordana Bewster and Lucy Liu will all be in new shows and there's apparently a spin-off of Grey's Anatomy, which I won;t watch but should be a big deal. So now I'm starting a countdown for next fall already.

Anyway, That's all for today, enjoy the tourney.

-Bender Out

The latest of my hiatuseses

2007-03-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted, due to a combination of laziness and a nice trip down DC for a wedding. Most of you already know this of course because at least five of the ten people who actually read my blog were at said wedding. The wedding was kick ass, it was in Georgetown, and needless to say I'm a much bigger fan of the area than I am of the local university's basketball team. I must pat myself on the back for looking phenomenal in my tux, and I was even told as much by several admirers, including one very fetching cougar who was all about my set, but I digress. Anyway as a result of the weekend's festivities I didn't watch nearly as much basketball as I would normally have and can only speak on a few limited aspects of the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. So here are a few things I couldn't keep my mouth shut about. First, a few people cried about a supposed travel by Jeff Green in Georgetown's exciting win over Vanderbilt, and my take is this: how come guards travel almost everytime they come into the lane and no one says boo, but everytime a big man takes two and a halfsteps they can;t believe there was no whistle? If you go by the rule book definition on travels there's probably a travel on every possession, and just because guards are smaller, quicker and smoother doesn't mean that they should get away with it more, although they do. The one game I actually got to watch this weekend was Ohio State's huge comeback against Tennessee. The Buckeye's had no business getting that far down in the first place, but they really kept their cool and allowed the Tennessee style to even itself out, then when the game was on the line Oden was able to make his presence felt on the defensive end. Once again proving why Oden needs to be the number one pick in next year's draft.

I was able to follow the Georgetown-UNC game on the radio, and with five minutes left UNC had seemingly taken control of the game and were up ten, but after that point the Tarheels fell apart completely, I wish I'd been able to see the game on TV but this game was so good that even translated on the radio. Not only have Hibbert and Jeff Green established themselves as sure lottery picks, but I'm starting to come around on Tyler Hansbrough and I'm starting to think that someday we'll be looking back at this game as a classic featuring six future lottery picks. The most interesting subplot for me was seeing JT3 outcoach Roy Williams. Williams supposedly had gotten the monkey off his back a couple years ago by winning the national title, but it seems to me like there was just too much talent on that team for Williams' poor game coaching to take over. Between his days at Kansas and now at UNC he has arguably coached the most talent of out of any college coach over the last twenty years and to see him with only one title has got to be considered a disappointment. Meanwhile John Thompson III is emerging as a superior coach to even his father. In some ways it reminds me of how Bill Belichick emerged from Parcells' shadow to become the superior head coach. You would think that equalling the legend would be impossible, let alone surpassing it, but JT3 already seems to be a superior game coach and if he can continue to get the big recruits he could have a more succesful career than his legendary father.

Anyway, that's all I've got about college basketball for now, and in the world of sports there really isn't much else going on as best exemplified by the fact that Michael Ray richardson's "anti-semitic" remarks have dominated sports radio today. What Richardson said was stupid, but I really didn't care to hear about the dumb comments of the head coach of the Albany Patroons. The one silver lining in all of this was an anecdote that made it to the air today involving something richardson had said as a player. When he was playing for the Nets one particularly difficult season he declared "This ship be sinking." Then when the reporter asked him how low it could sink he said, "The skies the limit." In case you were wondering, richardson, a former NBA All-Star is far from the most famous coach to ever lead the Patroons, in the mid-eighties their coach was Phil Jackson, so maybe someday Richardson will end up as a coaching legend, who knows?

One last sports note, Jonathan Papelbon has been moved back into the closers role this year. Good news for my fantasy baseball team, but bad news in the big picture. It's a waste to have someone of Papelbon's talent level in the role of closer. The contribution of a closer as compared to that of a good starter has become completely overrated in the last couple years. If I have to endure one more person making the point that Mariano Rivera has been the most important player for the Yankees over the last ten years, I may vomit. At this point he's one of only two guys who has been there for the full time period, along with Derek Jeter, who was not the player as a rookie, that he is now. But more importantly, if Rivera had been a number one or number two starter for those ten years he would've been a hell of a lot more valuable. People see the closer as such a critical role because it's a very obvious thing, any idiot can see that when a closer blows a save he cost them the game, but it's a lot more difficult to quantify the value of a high level starter. Hopefully the Red Sox can fnd a less talented guy to be a top closer next year and Papelbon can start to fulfill more of his potential, give him a shot at greatness, and if he can't quite hack it, they'll move him back to being a dominant closer.

Those are my sports thoughts for today, I'll be back soon to fill you in on the world of entertainment.

-Bender Out

First Weekend Reactions

2007-03-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a week, and I keep putting off my ramblings, so I have a few of them saved up. The main thing going on has been the NCAA Tourney and instead of giving all my thoughts between rounds and going on record, I waited til the end of the weekend so I can seem like I know what i'm talking about. Everyone was disappointed by the lack of upsets in the first round, but it made for a much mroe exciting second round. And for the most part all of the favorites are still alive with the exception of Wisconsin. The Badgers were a team that relied on strong defense and great execution, they didn't have a high margin for error, so once their starting center went down they weren't quite the same team thay had been all year. The next big surprise was Texas being knocked out, many people were predicting them as a final four team, beating both UNC and Georgetown. I guess they were confusing a great player with a great team. Durant was the best player in college this year, and he should turn pro right away, even if he'll only be the second pick. He has a great jumper, and although a lot of people have gotten too high on him right now, he looks like he'll be an all-star in three years. I just don;t see him leading a team in the pros, was Glenn Robinson really any less dominant in college? And the big Dog did it against better competition. As great a year as durant had in college, the definite choice is still Greg Oden, and while he hasn't dominated this year, Shaq, Ewing, and Hakeem didn't dominate as freshmen either.

Of course the Tourney lost some luster for me on Saturday when the mighty BC Eagles lost to Georgetown. I didn't really expect BC to win, although when they had an eight point lead in the second half I started believing a little. But they just couldn't compete with The Hoyas on the inside. The local talk has been whether or not BC could have beaten G-town if they still had Sean Williams. It's impossible to say, but given how close the game ended up being, it couldn;t have hurt, but the real issue is that they wouldn't have had to play a team as good as Georgetown if Williams had still been there. Either way it doesn't matter, BC made the right choice by sending Williams and McClain packing. I still think that Williams has the ability to play in the NBA, but he needs to commit more to basketball, and maybe this situation will help him realize that he needs to give more if he wants to make it in the NBA. I was starting to feel down about BC's future, given that at the end of the season their team was basically three deep and two of those three are graduating. So I looked up BC's recruits for next year, and they have five guys signed, four of whom are in the ESPN150. And they have another seven-footer considering coming as well. He's leaning toward Georgetown, a constant nemesis going back to the time when they swiped up local phenom Patrick Ewing out from under Gary Williams, but you have to think that any seven footer would rather come to BC with their rich legacy of great centers, such as Troy Bowers, Mickey Curley, and Nate Doornekamp. So maybe they can keep up their current string of NCAA appearances. And who knows, maybe Tyler Roche or Shamari Spears will take their games to the next level, and John Oates and Tyrelle Blair will prove to be enough as a combo to compete on the top half of the ACC again.

The other big news in college basketball was the firing of Tommy Amaker by Michigan. It's about time, Amaker has been a flop since leaving Duke as an assistant. He was able to get big recruits at seton Hall, but never won there and then hopped to Michigan where he never qualified for the NCAA tourney. Maybe now we understand why Johnny Dawkins has never ventured out from under Coach K's wing, it'll be interesting to see what amaker does now, if he is a true coach he'll try to get a job with a lower division 1 team, but I'm guessing he'll resurface as an assistant with Coach K or one of his proteges. Maybe he could work at New Hampshire next year,they need a good coach there.

On a closing note, I was sad to see Brandon Rogers get voted off of American Idol this week, he had the talent to go to the final few singers, but he was never able to put it together, perhaps some people are just destined to be good back-up singers. I really wish the fans would let that poor Sanjaya be voted off, he doesn't seem comfortable in his own skin, and he shouldn't be subjected to the torture that is performing then being told he's awful, sadly I don;t think they'll be so merciful anytime soon.

That's all I'm giving for now, until next time,

-Bender Out

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills

2007-03-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

A couple of shocking moves this week. The first is the Knicks extension of Isiah Thomas' tenure as team President. The reasoning, reportedly, is that the organization is using the team's current position as the eighth place team in the eastern conference as proof that Isiah is a success as GM and as a coach. I would say it was shocking, but the fact that Isiah even had a job going into this season has rendered any future developments as commonplace. I can only view this from the perspective of a Celtics fan and perennial Isiah hater, and from that perspective, this move makes me giddy. Being guaranteed of the Knicks future failures just makes me want to celebrate. Isiah is usually a good judge of talent when it comes to the draft, and he ever realized that was his strength, the team might be able to build on this season's "success." But based on Zeke's history, I feel like there's no chance of that. So here's to the Knicks organization, for making my day, and giving me just a little more hope for the Celtics in the future.

The second most bizarre news this week came from Louisiana, where "Big Baby" Glen Davis has declared for the draft. Unless he figures out the joy of exercise and conditioning before draft day, he will be lucky to go in the second round, and his agent will quickly be fielding calls from Europe. The only way this makes any sense is if Davis realizes that if he spends another year in college he will be further exposed as a fraud and he'll never get a sniff at the NBA, maybe at this point he still has enough of a big name that some GM will take a flyer on him in the hopes that he'll pull a Udonis Haslem and transform himself in to an NBA level athlete and for once live up to his billing.

A quick non-sports note, I saw 300 this weekend and it is every bit as cool as the trailer made it seem. A lot of critics panned it, but if you like cool action movies, this will be the most satisfying one since Kill Bill. It's very graphic and they even threw in some gratuitous sex and nudity, basically staying true to the elements that make graphic novels fun. Another good quality to this movie was that I haven;'t missed a day at the gym since I saw it. I don;t really know much of the cast, I recognized a couple from other movies, but they're all jacked, even the deformed guy was in much better shape than me, now I understand better why the gay pilot in Airplane asked the young boy if he ever watched Gladiator movies. Anyway thats it for today.

-Bender Out

The Madness Has Begun

2007-03-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

In some people's minds the official start of March Madness is this week with the announcement of the field of 65. But really the madness has been going on since at least Thursday with the start of the Big East tourney, if not even earlier. A few quick thoughts before I get into the specifics of the brackets. I think Tyler Hansbrough averaged at least two elbows/slaps to opponents faces during the ACC tournament. He pulled a Kobe on Jared Dudley during the semi-final and pretty much intentionally punched Dudley in the face under the guise of getting tangled up, then pulled a similar, although more incidental, move on Brandon Costner in the final. To me this is just more evidence that when Gerald Henderson broke his nose, that was no accident. The whole ACC Tournament showed two things, first, UNC was by far the best team in the league, and second, the league was very deep. I feel like if FSU were in any other league, they be dancing right now, unfortunately you can't take two thirds of any league, no matter how good they are at this point.

The highlight of this weekend to me was the crazy finishes in the mid and low majors, the league tournaments in these conferences really are a microcosm of the National Championship Tournament. These teams are fighting for their lives and just making the tourney is the equivalent of winning the big dance. The best finish came in the MAC where Miami of Ohio hit a miracle shot to win a berth. The only low major game that I watched completely was Albany's upset of Vermont up in Burlington. The level of play is obviously noticeably worse, but the action can be really intense and the effort is the same if not better form any game you watch all season.

OK, onto my review of the seedings. The most important part of the selection show is of course the snubs, because their season just ended when they thought they still had a shot. I'm especially sensitive to their plight, I remember in 2003 when BC seemingly had done enough to get into the tournament, they had ten wins in the Big East during the regular season and had made it to the semi-finals of the Big East tourney, as if they needed more to fill out their resume, they beat NC State, another bubble team, handily on the road and they had beaten UConn by 20 in Storrs. But the selection came and went without BC's name being called, as you can tell I still have bad memories of it to this day. The biggest shocker today, Syracuse was left out. The Orange had seemingly locked up a spot with a huge win over Georgetown a couple weeks back, but now the Orange's season is really over, believe me, they don;t care that much about the NIT. Not as surprising was FSU being left out. But they seemed to deserve it more than a lot of the other bubble teams . They upset Florida, the team who was named the top seed overall by the selection committee, and they also won at Duke, which was still a decent feet this year. The Seminoles didn;t lose to anyone outside of the RPI top 50, but unfortunately the ACC was so deep this year that they were the eighth best team in a twelve team league, and the committee didn;t want to take that many teams from one league.

As for the teams that got in, my hometown Eagles got the seed they probably deserved, and they should be able to beat Texas Tech in the first round, but it's no sure thing. Their reward if they can beat Texas Tech? Getting beat up by Georgetown. I guess the NCAA wants them to get eliminated by one of their former Big East rivals every year, as they were by Villanova last year. Best case scenario would have been to get a six seed, and hope to play one of the weaker three seeds in the second round, but all in all they'd have to view a second round exit as a nice accomplishment. speaking of Georgetown, I've decided that the Big East was a one team league similar to the way the ACC was dominated by one team. Georgetown seemingly got the best draw out of anyone in terms of having an easy ride to the Elite 8. If they're playing against UNC for a chance at the final four, I'll have a lot of trouble choosing who to root for. They're probably my two least favorite teams right now, the one highlight might come when Tyler Hansbrough tries to pull his junk and either Pat Ewing Jr. or Roy Hibbert knocks him out. I know it's a long shot, but really it's the only scenario I'd enjoy. By the way, the dumbest comment of the day came on ESPN, Digger Phelps said that Georgetown would sneak up on everyone. Who the hell are they gonna sneak up on you moron, they're one of the favorites to win the whole thing, but you think they're gonna sneak up on everyone. Why don;t you just concentrate on finding a puce Highliter to match your new tie, and let the real analysts say something.

A few other notes, how did Florida get ranked as the number 1 overall team? Are we just ignoring their three game losing streak because they dominated their weak opponents in the SEC tournament. They let recent performance greatly dictate every other seed in the tourney, but not this one for some reason. Ohio State deserved that honor, especially because they dominated a worthy team, Wisconsin, in their conference tourney. I was gonna make my predictions for the Final four, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing, and I'd probably just end up naming the four number 1 seeds. I will predict that UNC will meet Texas in the sweet 16, leading to a ton of people predicting Texas to win, but UNC will handle them easily. I'll also predict a couple upsets for Georgia Tech against UNLV and Wisconsin, and maybe even a trip to the elite 8. I'm also going to begrudgingly predict a run for Duke, I'm not sold on either Pitt or UCLA in the tournament. Of course I made these predictions about UCLA last year. My last prediction is that I'll play hookie on Thursday and Friday afternoon.

Can;t wait til Thursday at noon, til then...

-Bender Out

Idol chatter

2007-03-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

Shocking results from American Idol last night where one of the girls who could actually sing was sent home. Sabrina Sloan was probably the fourth best singe, and she even looked like a pop star to boot. I don;t know if it was because she sang that En Vogue song this week or if people just didn't like her for some unknown reason, perhaps she should've followed my advice and dressed sluttier, who knows what could've happened. The second biggest surprise was that Sundance Head was sent packing. I was never really that impressed by him, they'd been hyping him up since his initial audition, but he never really backed it up. He sang "Jeremy" on Tuesday, and when I heard him doing it I wanted to cry a little, part of my soul died that night and I'll never be the same. But seriously, that song had no business being on American Idol, I feel like a lot of the audience doesn't even know that song, and his rendition came off a lot like SevenMaryThree, which was a southern rock imitation of those grunge bands from the mid-90s. So truthfully I'm not that upset about Sundance going home, it's more of a situation where I wish they would have put poor Sanjaya out of his misery. Sanjaya has a decent voice but he's akward for a 17 year-old let alone too akward to be on this show, he should come back in about five years. The other two dismissals were a lot more satisfying to me, Antonella Barba was borderline to make it to the final 24, and then with her scandal and everything else it became abvious that she was getting voted through for all the wrong reasons, she'll be better off to just get out of the spotlight and go back to being a normal, attractive young woman who sings well at karaoke night. I actually was very happy to see Jared cotter get voted off. Of all the contestants he seemed to have the most out of touch sense of self. After he was voted off, he seemed legitimitely pissed and shocked, and he even said as much. He probably thought he was the favorite before he got voted off last night, but in reality his singing was medocre by competition standards. The show should pick up next week when they start their theme episodes and only one person will get voted off per week. Hopefully Sanjaya will get voted off, but if not him my predition is Jordin Sparks again. She seems to not really have her own niche and comes off as a less talented version of Melinda, but that's just one man's opinion. That's all I've got on Idol for this week, I'll be back soon to talk about March Madness, a lot of crazinees this week to see who will get into the tourney, til then.

-Bender Out

Feeling Sporty

2007-03-06T08:33:00.000-08:00

Lots of big things happening in the sports world, and I know you'd all feel incomplete without my comments.

The Pats are going to Super bowl XLII. The biggest prize in this year's free agent class is coming to town, along with some other parts that have us Pats fans feeling downright giddy. Adalius Thomas, a guy built like a defensive tackle, who can run like a safety will be Bill Belichick's newest weapon next year. The possibilities are seemingly endless, the way the mastermind will frustrate Pats opponents next year in so many new ways, it should be very fun to watch. But the great news does not stop there, they also picked up some complimentary pieces to help the offense. Their latest acquisition, Wes Welker is a do everything mighty mite in the mold of Troy Brown. He's not a traditional number one receiver but he should be able to get at least 50 catches next year and provide help on special teams. They also signed Kyle Brady, as a cheaper alternative to Daniel Graham as a blocking tight end. Brady is clearly less explosive than Graham, he won;t be taking a screen pass to the house, and he probably won;t be pancaking Julius Peppers anytime soon, the way Graham did in super bowl XXXVIII, but he will serve their needs as a strong blocker to help spring their run game and provide extra protection against a strong pass rush. They were also able to pick up sammy Morris as a number two back to Laurence Maroney. Morris is clearly a downgrade from Corey Dillon, but he comes at a much lower price tag and he won;t be asked to do as much as Dillon because they expect Maroney to blossom into an elite runner next year. As a side note this makes Maroney a true sleeper for fantasy football next year where should perform as a top ten back. The best part of all this news is that the Pats still have two first round picks in next month's draft and they should still be able to sign useful pieces on the cheap as has been their hallmark in recent years. I don;t mean to put the cart before the horse, but I'm already considering buying a new hat and gloves for next year's parade.

This whole off-season has been very exciting, it's getting to the point where the football off-season is more exciting than the "hot stove." The only difference really is that just about everyone thinks they can be a baseball GM whereas with football they know better. But the amount of changeover in football is so much greater due to there be no guaranteed contracts and a hard salary cap, this year especially there is so much going on, I can't imagine that a fan of any team isn;t excited on some level right now. And all this excitement is before the draft, which is by far the most popular draft of any major sport, and before the many cuts that usually come June 1st, which leads to a second set of crazy movement. Just look at The Dolphins, sure they lost Nick Saban as their coach, and Wes Welker, an emerging young receiver, but today they signed Joey Porter, which in their minds has to override any negatives fo the off-season. At this time of year the possibilities are endless, even Raiders fans think their team could be good next year (although there's really no possible way,) and how can you blame them. Football just needs to come up with a cool nickname for this time of year i.e. "Hot Stove" so they can market it the way baseball does, hopefully ESPN will come up with something in the next few weeks.

Ok, that's enough about Football, it is of course March which is the time when College Basketball is king. right now we're in the early stages, where everyone is just dying to be one of the 65 teams who are still alive come sunday. The mighty BU Terriers have already fallen by the wayside, so that really opens up things for Kansas or Ohio State. There's nothing quite like the phenomenon where you can root hard for a team that you had never seen play before that game, but it happens every March. Last night I wanted very badly for Santa Clara to knock off Gonzaga, whom I now consider the Duke of the mid-majors, and by next thursday it will be far more prevalent.

Speaking of Duke, I just have to weigh in on the Gerald Henderson elbow incident. In the interest of full disclosure, I don;t like Duke, never have. I root against Coach K, I root against Tommy Amaker, and on down all the way to Elton Brand and Shelden Williams. So with all that out of the way, I have to say that the elbow looked very intentional, and I think the punishment fit the crime. You can't increase the suspension just because of the damage that the elbow did. I think that Gerald Henderson wanted to hit Hanborough hard, maybe he didn;t mean to hit him in the nose and break it, but he definitely meant to hit him hard for no real reason other than the fact that he had the opportunity. The fact that Hansborough seems to be genuinely disliked by his opponents because of his physical, sometimes chippy play also may have played a role, and in my mind is perhaps evidence against Henderson in this case. I actually enjoyed watching the reaction of both players afterward, Henderson had look to suggest, "yeah I did, and I'm not sorry." Wheareas "Psycho T" looked like he really wanted to go after Henderson, but there were too many people around. It's too bad they aren't seeded differently so they would be likely to play again in the ACC tournament, but I don;t think Duke has the horses to make it there this year.

One final note on the incident, I thought coach K came off like a real A-hole in the postgame when he insinuated that it was Roy Williams' fault for leaving Hansborough in after the game had been decided. Duke has always had this holier than thou attitude, Coach K's kids would never do something wrong even when the evidence says otherwise. How could anything ever be the fault of a Duke player, has there ever been an explanation for why Laettner wasn't suspended for stomping on the Kentucky player back in 92? I doubt Coach K admits that Laettner did that, he probably argues that Laettner just meant to step on the ground.

I'll be back with more College Basketball soon with so much going on.

-Bender Out

Brief Hiatus

2007-03-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

I'm back to do a little recap of the last week. I've been in mourning since Eddie Murphy was snubbed at the Oscars last week. That whole best supporting actor category was full of great candidates, I would've been somewhat happy with any decision so long as Mark Walberg didn't get the nod. I always end up rooting for the person who is least likely to be back for a second chance, such as Bill Murray a couple years ago in Lost in Translation. This year both Eddie Murphy and Jackie Earle Haley fit the bill, I don;t think anyone could've imagined Murphy or Haley ever getting a nomination, in fact most people didn't even know that the former Kelly Leak was still acting. Anyway, seeing Alan Arkin win the Oscar was a little disappointing even though I like him and he seemingly got the edge because he's been pretty great for a long time and this was in some ways a lifetime achievement award. I enjoyed Little Miss Sunshine and I enjoy the idea of a comedy getting a nomination, but Little Miss Sunshine didn't seem best picture worthy to me, and it somehow became one of the more overrated comedies in recent history.

I just have to comment on American Idol, in case you were worried I'm still completely hung up on the show even though the shows came and went without a comment so far. Well there's so much still on my mind three full days later. First off, Kelly Pickler still looks phenomenal, she may look a little different, switching to a more traditional country look and filling out in some areas, but she was filling out that blue dress better than the designer had ever imagined. On to the eliminations. I was pissed to see Leslie Hunt sent packing, she sang well enough and she had a quiet unassuming nature, I'm just thinking that her lack of self promotion and ego in addition to that awful song did her in. I had never heard that song before, but from now on I'm going to remember it as the stupid song that eliminated two contestants in one week. Poor AJ Tabaldo was done in by that song, and perhaps the whole, "is he gay?" thing. As for Nick and Alaina, they didn't really impress me, despite the fact that Nick was a local kid, he was still my least favorite, and alaina was probably going to go only as far as her looks could take her. My last note on the show was that Sanjaya completely over-acted the shocked reaction that he wasn;t going home. He probably really did think he deserved to go home, but he wanted to make sure that even the least perceptive viewers could tell that was his thinking. It was the level of acting you might see in one of those awful Skinemax movies, not the great ones that featured Shannon Tweed or Lisa Boyle/Cassandra Leigh, I'm talking about the really low budget ones like the new one with Tanya from the Real World. But I digress, I'll give Sanjaya a pass because he's young, my predictions for next weeks eliminations are Sanjaya, Jared Cotter, (both of which will have Paula near tears) for the men, and Haley and Jordin for the women, proving that people will continue to vote for Antonella for all the wrong reasons. By the way, Paula won't shed a tear for any woman eliminated.

A few quick TV notes, the season finales of both Monk and Psych aired on Friday. Do yourself a favor and add both of these shows to your Tivo, they are similar quirky mystery/comedy shows which I enjoy greatly. On Psych there's great chemistry within the cast and Dule Hill seems a lot more suited to this comedic sidekick role than being a bit player in a vastly overrated White house drama. And if you don;t know about Monk by now, you really should, it was always a good show but it really kicked it up to the next level when Traylor Howard joined the cast, she really should be this generation's Meg Ryan, I don;t understand why she hasn't done more movies.

Speaking of that overrated White House drama, I completely gave up on Studio 60. It was a great idea for a show, but the execution hasn't quite done it for me. They should have spent more time figuring out how to write funny jokes, and less time on the "who cares" romance between Matthew Perry and that blonde Christian character. The Black Donnellys, which is currently airing in Studio 60's spot was surprisingly good, to the point where I'll be watching the next few episodes in hopes of it being the next great show.

Thats all I'm gonna get into for now, I'll be back soon to update all my sports thoughts, there's been a lot going on especially in College Basketball. but for now...

-Bender Out

American Idol Results

2007-02-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

Ever since season two I've been completely hooked by Idol, and at this point I can;t bear the idea of not putting my two cents in after every show. I was a little disappointed tonight to see that Paul Kim was voted out. He was one of my early favorites, not necessarily to win the competition, but I enjoyed his performances. Maybe people were put off by the fact that he didn't wear shoes, and admittedly his song selection wasn't great, but he had a great voice and should have made the final twelve. As for the other three, I can't really complain, I didn't think much of any of them, I would've rather seen Antonella Barba go home than Nicole Tranquillo, I think she just picked a bad song and had enough talent to stay around. The highlight of the show for me was that Simon acted like a dick to the very end, throwing one last shot at Rudy after he'd been voted off. The lowlight was Fantasia's performance, not that there's anything wrong with her, but I'm definitely not the intended audience.

Enough about Idol, there were a bunch of little things in the sports world I wanted to mention. A big night in the NBA, Dwyane Wade dislocated his shoulder and should be out for about 6 weeks. He'll back in time for the playoffs, but right now the heat are very much in danger of finishing on the outside looking in. It was tough to watch Wade start crying on the sideline and then to see him rolled off in a wheelchair seemed like a bit much for a shoulder injury. The real highlight of the night for me was when Shaq dunked on Mutombo then wagged the finger in his face, the refs gave him a technical, but it was probably worth it, Mutombo has probably wagged his finger over a thousand times, and Shaq may have even been a victim before. The only other noteworthy event was the lack of trades before today's deadline. I guess Andrew Bynum is too much to ask in return for one of the best point guards of all-time. I don;t know if Kidd would've made the Lakers a champion, but I think they're rating Bynum too highly.

A mixed bag of news for the Patriots fans, Adalius Thomas will be available as a free agent, and the Pats could definitely use him. He'd fit right into their style, unfortunately he'll probably be getting huge offers due to the raised salary cap and the lack of other free agents. The really bad news for the Pats is that Chad Jackson has a torn ACL and it's just another sign pointing to Jackson being a huge bust.

Last note today, good luck to one of my favorite baseball players of the last ten years, the mighty El Guapo is making a comeback. Rich Garces signed with the Nashua Pride in hopes of making it back to the bigs, if nothing else it should sell a few tickets for the Pride.

That's all I've got for today.

-Bender Out

Tribute to DJ

2007-02-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

Like everyone else I was in shock when I heard the news today that Dennis Johnson had collapsed and died today. He was only 52 years old, and it makes me extra sad because DJ was always such a nice and fun guy in interviews. Not that I really know, but he always struck me as a nice guy in addition to being a great basketball player. And as the brief tributes began to pour in, I was shocked to find out that DJ was not in the Hall-of-Fame. To me it just reveals the lack of understanding out there about who really is a great basketball player. Larry Bird said DJ was the best he ever played with, which is not an empty compliment when you think of how many great players were on the Celtics in the 80s. He was also the best player on that championship Sonics team in the late 70s, he won the finals MVP in 1979. He did all the the little things that added up to wins, he was one of the best defensive players of his era, and always did a great job matching up with Magic in those great Lakers/Celtics battles in the mid-80s. He had a great understanding of the game and he had a knack for coming through in the clutch, as best exemplified by his role in the greatest play in the history of the NBA, Bird's steal against the Pistons. Sure Bird made an amazing steal, but it wouldn't meant much if DJ hadn't made a heads up play to cut down the lane and then finished it off over a Joe Dumars. (Take a look on youtube). DJ was always clutch for the Celtics in those days, I can never remember him not coming through. As Ric Bucher said today on ESPN, it was typical of DJ to be helping a player learning some of the little things in the game at the time of his death. DJ was a former head coach briefly for the Clippers in the NBA, and had been an assistant with The Celtics before that, and some people in his position may have been too proud to work in the D-league, but Dennis was never the type to shy away from hard work, and that was what made him one the finest and most underrated players of his era. Hopefully DJ will be put into the Hall-of-Fame soon, but I just wish he had been able to enjoy the honor and be there to accept it.

American Idol: Day 2

2007-02-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've been having fun with the beginning of the live American Idol episodes, but I have to begin with a crazy story. Tommy "The Duke" Morrison, claiming that he never really was HIV positive. This story just doesn;t make any sense, no matter what the truith is. Morrison retired ten years ago due to a positive test for HIV, but now he says it was a false positive. Wouldn't you take a second test just to make sure? If it really was a doctor's mistake, wouldn;t he be unleashing a nasty lawsuit against his doctors? If he really was and is carrying the HIV virus, how could he get doctors in Arizona to say that tests now show he has no signs of it? This is not the end of the story, they really need to answer these questions in the future. The biggest question is, why would Tommy Gunn get back in the ring now? He was a mediocre boxer ten years ago, and there's no reason that should be any different now, in fact he should be a step or two lower on the totem poll, to the point where medocrity is something he could strive for. There's even a chance that his return bout goes so poorly, that no one will care what the truth is in this case.

Onto entertainment, which is usually more upbeat, but tonight I have sad news. Tomorrow night is the final episode of the OC. I know many of you are shocked to hear that this show was even still on the air, but it was, and it will be for one more night. The show never delivered on its initial promise, it could have been something much more, but sadly it burned out faster than Dawson's Creek. Perhaps if they had concentrated on Rachel Bilson more, put in some plotlines where she hung out in a bikini for a whole summer's worth of episodes, but alas, it's all too little too let. I'm actually glad it's finally being put to rest mercifully, I found everything after the first six episodes to be unwatchable, there was buzz about a hot lesbian relationship and some other racy storylines but it never had the magic of Bevery Hills 90210 and will be forgotten much sooner.

Ok, now for my favorite guilty pleasure, trying to decide who is the hottest girl on this year's edition of American Idol. Well unfortunately, this year my rooting interst will have to based on talent. There are certainly no Carrie Underwoods or Kelly Picklers in this crowd. I watched closely, hoping to find a diamond in the rough and the best I could come up with were Haley Scarnato, who has the same body as the post-idol Katherine McPhee and Nicole Tranquillo who looked good right up to the point where she started making ridiculous faces when she started singing. The worst news is that these two girls, along with the mildly attractive Antonella Barba and Alainna Alexander, will be gone soon. I lump those last two girls together for no other reason than they blend together in my mind, and I'm completely unimpressed. All hope is not lost, if Sabrina Sloan or Amy Krebs starts dressing sluttier, they could be darkhorses over time. They would have to be counting on "hottest girl at the party" factor. You know, the interesting phenomenon where a guy will convince himself that a mildly attractive girl is really hot due to the fact that there are no other decent looking girls around. But the most likely scenario is that I'll have to root for one of the girls who isn;t really attractive but is very likable and talented as well. The three most likable contestants were the girls that had that "gee shucks" factor. They were very unassuming and they got they based on their voices as opposed to their "star factor." The three women in this category are Leslie Hunt, Jordina Sparks and Melinda Doolittle. Hunt is goofy and likeable , she's a dog-walker by day, and the most unassuming contestant this year, she sang Natural Woman, and her voice sounded good, (worth noting, her brother Mike stood up and cheered loudly.) Sparks is this years young girl contestant, and she's sweet and sings pleasing songs, but will eventually lose out because of her lack of understanding of the songs. And Doolittle is a great singer who could win if she can get over the idea in her head that she isn;t a star. The most impressive performance was Lakisha Jones, who stands alone as the favorite right now, she sang the song from Dreamgirls and managed to put Jennifer Hudson to shame. But I'm not one for hopping on the bandwagon, so as of now I'm rooting For Melinda Doolittle.

General observations on the show, it drives me crazy when the performers song songs that I don;t know or they try their own arrangement of a famous song. Save that for the later rounds, these two types of performances would strike me as the best way to get yourself eliminated early on. Also, I've long suspected that they line up the performances based on how well they do in rehearsals, and after tonight there's no doubt in my mind. Are you going to tell me that it's just a coincidence that the girl who was by far the best was last on the show? It'll become more and more clear as the season goes on if you hadn;t noticed it already in the past.

The real star of this show is definitely Simon Cowell. He makes this show what it is. Not just with his analysis which everyone seems to think is mean spirited but is probably the most honest thing coming form any of the judges, but more for his "bad-guy" personality. Sometimes it reminds me of watching wrestling, I half expect him to turn to the audience and start shouting "shut up" while he covers his ears. It really is great entertainment, tonight's highlight was when he claimed Ryan Seacrest was trying to hit on one of the women, and Seacrest didn;t know how to react. On one hand, it was a nice way to combat the gay rumors, but on the other hand he's supposed to fight with Simon. Seacrest decided not to shout back, "Don't you know I'm gay you idiot?" Instead he didn;t respond.

On a final note in the world of sports. Maceo Baston had a nasty dunk for the Pacers tonight. I bring this up not because I'm all about nasty dunks, but because I had no idea that Baston was still around. It's been over ten years since he was trying to become part of the new Fab Five at michigan, that's a long time for someone to still be grinding it out without ever really making it in the NBA, anyway, good for him.

As Always

-Bender Out

Trade Talking

2007-02-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

Trade deadlines are a funny thing, in some ways they are the most exciting part of the season, but in other ways, nothing ever happens. Every year there are huge names thrown out there in trade rumors, and then the deadline comes and goes without anything close to a blockbuster deal. Of course there are exceptions, a few years ago Gary Payton got traded for Ray Allen, but other years the biggest name was Scott Brooks. So right now we're hearing huge names, (Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Pau Gasol, Mike Bibby, even Keving Garnett,) but my money is on no big deals. The main reason is that unlike baseball, there is much better value in trading a star during the off-season as opposed to mid-season. Most of the offers these teams will get will involve draft picks, and they want to be sure that those draft picks are as high in June as they think they'll be now. The only guys who make any sense to be traded now are Kidd and Carter. Kidd because of his marital troubles off the court and Carter because his contract is up at the end of the year. The problem is that no teams are willing to risk giving up good players in return, because they don't want to mess too much with their chemistry that has them succesful to this point. The Lakers are rumored to be offering Jordan Farmar, Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm for Kidd. I can't imagine that New Jersey could get at all excited about that group, especially since the key piece coming their way would be Farmar and the Nets already have a rookie poiunt guard they're high on in Marcus Williams. I hope I'm wrong and all the aforementioned stars are traded in the next day, but history says we won't be so lucky.

That's enough sports for today, I wanted to give some initial thoughts on the first night of the American Idol live competitions. It was the twelve guys last night, and there really weren't too many highlights from a singing perspective. The most notable things were the beat box kid who just sang a normal song, and the asian guy who decided not to wear any shoes. I wasn't really a fan of the no shoes thing, but I like the way he sings, hopefully he'll be around for a while. Thoughts about the competition in general are that a lot of people are going for style over substance. I guess this is the Taylor Hicks factor, they're intentionally angling to be very likable and quirky to make up for a lack of pure talent. Taylor was not the most talented contestant last year but he felt the music, danced poorly and he had gray hair, all of which got him a lot of votes. This year's most obvious Taylor Hicks impersonation is being made by a kid named Chris Sligh. Sligh looks lack Jack Osbourne but has a good enough voice and is trying to ooze personality. In his pre-show interview he basically stated that his strategy was to stand out in ways other than singing, which while it is a good strategy, should never be stated on the show. Also worthy of noting is how overhyped this kid Sundance Head has proven to be. He's gotten a lot of camera time, and he's got personality, but it seems like every performance is worse than the one before. He probably won;t get voted off right away because he is unique, but if there is any justice he won;t make it to the final twelve.

As for the show in general, the best part last night was the battle of the divas. Ryan Seacrest vs. Simon Cowell in an insult war, which is kinda fun because they both deserve it. I'm expecting an impromptu edition of "Yo Momma" to break out before the end of the season, complete with guest appearance by Fes himself, Wilmer Valderrama.

I am an unapologetic fan of these reality/competition shows, going back to watching Starsearch in my youth. That's half the reason I'm pumped for the new season of Dancing with the Stars. There aren't any really sexy ladies a la Stacy Keibler, but I was happy to see Ian Ziering on the list for this season. The world needs more Steve Sanders, I've always been a fan of his since he became my first ever celebrity sighting outside of The Atrium Mall in Chestnut Hill, he and Luke Perry were out one of those insane celebrity appearances they were doing when 90210 first got on the air. Their combined age at the time of that sighting, a youthful 80 years old.

That's all for today.

-Bender Out

Weird Scenes Inside the Courtroom

2007-02-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Today saw one of the most bizarre situations ever in a high profile court case. During the Charlie Weis malpractice lawsuit this morning, a juror passed out and the doctors on trial quickly came to his aid, as a result it was declared a mistrial. The best news is that everyone is all right. It'll be interesting to see if they can reach a settlement given that both sides know how a trial would go at this point, and their legal fees have to be going through the roof. Not to mention that if the new trial were scheduled during football season, Weis wouldn't be too excited to fly to Boston mid-week for the trial. The biggest positive to come out of this situation from my perspective is that the public will see the risks of ghastric bypass surgery. It was starting to become so mainstream that some people were treating it like it was getting cosmetic surgery, it was the new liposuction. In many ways, Weis is lucky to be alive, and his health is not what it would've been had he never gotten the procedure. My hope is that this will be a cautionary tale for all those considering this surgery, it should only be a last resort.

-Bender Out

Oh Britney

2007-02-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

Well it's official, Britney Spears really did shave her head this weekend. I was actually worried about this kinda thing, white America is copying me, they've seen how damn good my shorn head looks and it has led to this. Damn me! Why do I have to look so damn good with a shaved head.

Seriously though, Britney is not in a good place. When she initially broke up with K-Fed we all had great hope that the old Brit was back. But since then it's been one bad turn after another, the partying, the pantyless pictures, the passing out. And this recent development is the most bizarre. It's starting to become obvious that Britney's problems are more than just those of a young rich girl partying a bit too much. I hope she can get things back together, but until I'll just have to try and remember the good times, when Brit was the hottest girl going and we could convince ourselves that she was a saint in her spare time.

Other crazy gossip going on today involves Bridget Moynihan's shocking revelation that she's pregnant with Tom Brady's love child. I was listening to sports radio here in Boston (http://www.weei.com), let me tell you the local ladies women have turned on their fellow Bay-Stater, calling her many names stopping just short of calling her a "wicked big whore." I guess hell hath no fury as a 200 pound woman in a Patriots hoodie., and Boston has a bunch of them. My favorite take on this issue was over on espn.com, where Jemele Hill credited Brady, along with the great Matt Leinart with blazing a new trail for white QBs in the NFL. It's a fun read, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/070219

The most important thing is that Tom and Bridget handle this situation properly, and by that of course I mean a trip to the Maury Povich show. Tom, don;t take her word for it until Maury says those fateful words, "Tom, you are the father." (Note to any Saturday Night Live employees, if this isn;t a sketch next week, I'll be very disappointed.)

Ok, that's it for today.

-Bender Out

All-Star Blogging

2007-02-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

It's All-Star weekend in the NBA so I wanted to throw out a lot of Basketball thoughts that have been on my mind.

First I just had to follow up on the Tim Hardaway comments about hating gay people. I'm glad that Tim was willing to speak his mind, because there were some people trying to pretend that the only reason that there haven't been openly gay players before was a personal choice not to announce it to the public. Well no, between Hardaway's comments and what Amaechi wrote in his book about Jerry Sloan I think we have a better understanding why no active players have come out. So as glad as I am that Hardaway spoke his mind, I'm even more glad that the NBA has fired his ass.

Another criticism I've heard a lot lately is that Amaechi's book is just a money grab, where John is cashing in on his homosexuality, and while I don;t know for sure that he isn;t just cashing in I would argue that there's at least a chance that some young gay athlete will be helped by reading his story. Sure he wants to get paid, just as much as anyone who's ever published a book before him, but I'd say that just about anyone thinks their story is worth telling. One of the more ironic things about this criticism is that two of the people I've seen criticize him are always busy trying to sell their own books. (Unfortunately neither Bill nor Michael read my blog, but if you see them you could call them out on this.)

Ok, I've said my piece on that, onto other happier news. Scottie Pippen wants to make a comeback, and while I think this is an awful idea, it does give me an excuse to make my argument about Pip becoming the most underrated player of all-time. The main reasons to me are simple, a lot of people enjoy the revisionist idea that Jordan was a one man team, forgetting that at times Pippen may have been the second best player in the league, not just the second best player on the Bulls. Second was that Pippen's weakest point was scoring, which is the most basic thing for fans to identify. Pippen was the real point guard on those Bulls teams, not BJ Armstrong or John Paxson and definitely not MJ. Also Pip was one of the best defensive players to ever play the game. He was the perfect complement for Jordan and I think the fact that they fit together so seemlesslyl is one reason why people don;t appreciate what he brought to the last great dynasty in pro sports. In summation, don't come back Scottie, it will just make more people forget how great you really were. He looked to be in good shape, but he's a lot skinnier than he ever was, he may have lost 20 pounds of muscle since his last season.

I've already heard a bunch of people criticizing this year's slam dunk contest, and I do agree that it's not what it used to be. That being said some of the criticisms have been way off base. Some complain about the fact that Kobe, Lebron and VC weren;t participating. Belive me, this is not the issue, there's a simple reason they didn't compete, mainly, they wouldn;t win. They should open up the competition more, and have more penalties for guys missing their dunks, (for the second year in a row Nate Robinson made a mockery of the rules.) All that being said, Gerald Green is the best dunker in the league right now, and his dunks were nice in this year's competition. Dunkers reach their peak right around 20 years old, and Gerald probably could've done more with a couple more attempts.

I didn't really pay too close attention to the dunk contest because I was watching BC vs. UNC over on ESPN. A crushing loss for the Eagles, who are doing their best despite the loss of the best defensive player in all of college basketball. I've really enjoyed the Jared Dudley era at Boston College. He was a last minute addition to the team his freshman year after big recruit Dan Coleman decided to go to Minnesota at the last minute. I guess sometimes it's better to be lucky than good if you're a college basketball coach. During last night's game Dudley made one of the greatest steals I've ever seen, it was right out of the Larry Bird playbook, he faked as if he was going back on D, then quickly jumped back and stole the ball, if Tyrese Rice had done a better Dennis Johnson imitation it may have been the sportscenter play of the day. Dudley missed some key shots down the stretch but that doesn;t happen very often, I don;t know if dudley will be drafted this June, but I'm sure that he'll be a role player in the NBA and have a long career because he does all the little things, and while stiffs like Roy Hibbert and Aaron Gray get a lot of ink about their pro potential, Dudley will be a better pro than either of them.

Speaking of Roy Hibbert, I watched G-town play Villanova, and it was a perfect reflection of the type of basketball that ruined the Big East back in the early 90s. As Jim Carrey might've said "I guess they were playing prison rules." When they get bounced in the first weekend of the tournament and whine about how the officials called them too tight on some nickel-dime fouls, remember that they should know better by now. The only Big East team who looks like they'll do well come March are the Louisville Cardinals, just when I was ready to write off little Ricky he goes and pulls something like this, and completely redeems himself. I'll never be a Pitino fan, he's as much a reason as anyone that the Celtics are still so awful, but he's a good college coach, hard to dispute that.

That's about all I have for today, exceopt maybe a parting shot at Tyler Hansborough, some people say he's hard-nosed and blue collar, but I think he's a cheap shot artist who plays dirty. I hope he enjoys his career at UNC because I don;t envision nearly as much success in the NBA as has been predicted.

And now, that's all I've got for now. I'll be back soon, maybe to discuss my final verdict on Danny Ainge and call for his firing before he blows a big opportunity for the C's this summer.

-Bender out.

Lotsa Opining

2007-02-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

Just a lot of things I wanted to put my two cents in on.

First off, the Grammys, the worst of the three major awards shows these days. The Grammys should be the best of what I call the three majors (along with the Emmys and the Oscars.) It lends itself to being a great show, it's all about music, there should be great acts one after the other, with a few awards handed out, but they blow it every year. The Dixie Chicks managed to win more awards than they sold copies of their album, they don't even really have an udience outside of the self-important famous bush-haters out there. I know for a fact that a lot of bands hate Bush, but they actually make better music to boot. As for the performances, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the bigger they try to make these things, the more they fail, maybe next year they can just get more great bands performing great songs, like The Red Hot Chili Peppers doing Snow. I liked the idea of the Police re-uniting but it didn;t quite capture my imagination, if you want to make a huge splash try to get ABBA back together next year and have them sing a medley of Fernando, Waterloo and whatever else they like. As far as the great JT goes, he kicks ass, but next time he should just do a great version of one of his songs and not try to give the greatest performance ever. The bottom line is that I feel like I'm a bit too old to enjoy music like I used to, and somehow I feel like the people behind the Grammys are way too old for me. Also it seems like they're trying to please everyone with these performances, and a lot of times when you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one.

While I'm on the subject of JT, is that new song What Goes Around another shot at Britney? I fully appreciate it if it is, I'm a very spiteful guy myself, definitely a holder of grudges and in a similar position I'd be laughing at Brit too. I feel like it's gotten to the point where I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I enjoy his music, is this what it was like for Michael back in the 80s? Maybe JT's next album will be like the new Thriller (doubtful, but it would be sweet.)

Loosely tied into JT is the fact that Saturday Night Live has been putting their best skits this season on Youtube. A stroke of genius if you ask me, now there is a lot more talk about how funny SNL has been lately. A year ago when "Lazy Sunday" came out, there was a lot of talk but nothing close to the talk about "Dick in a Box" and I have to point to the fact that it was a lot more readily available online. I also like how SNL has embraced the previously recorded shorts, which were actually a staple in the early years, the previously recorded skits have been the funniest recently.

I know I had wondered if I'd be able to get right back into Lost when it started up again, the answer is definitely "yes." Only two episodes into the second half of the season and I'm already dying for more. Not to ruin it for anyone who hasn;t watched but they've basically hinted that two more characters will be written off in the near future. And while it's disappointing that they might get rid of more characters, it adds a lot to their stories in the process.

I've been a big fan of Elizabeth Mitchell since she joined the Lost cast and in my research about her online I've found that she was actually involved in a lesbian love scene with Angelina Jolie. Apparently in the unrated version of GIA, they have a good time together, I refused to check it out because I'me very anti-Angelina and I'm a man of principle. In other Lesbian movie scene news there is apparently a kiss between Bridget Moynihan and Heather Graham out there as well. For the record, it may seem that I frequent some sort of website that would keep track of such lesbian scenes, and I want to state unequivocally, that yes, I do frequent such websites.

One last entertainment story I wanted to to comment on, I read that Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise will be starring in a movie together called Hardy Men. It's based on a grown-up version of the Hardy Boys, the old crime solvers who everyone loved, aside from Encyclopedia Brown of course. I like to make fun of Tom Cruise as much as anyone, but if they can recapture any of the magice from the old Tom Crooz skit that aired during the MTV movie awards a few years back, this movie will be a riot. And who knows, if it really is that great, maybe I'll start forgiving Tom for infecting Katie Holmes with crazy.

Just had to comment on the Marty Schottenheimer situation out in San Diego. AJ Smith has just made a huge mistake. Of all sports, Football is the one where coaching is most important, and if the Chargers really think that their team won;t miss a beat with all new coaches they're in for a rude awakening. I don't think it's a coincidence that Schottenheimer has had dominant defenses headlined by outside linebackers. This is not to say that Shawn Merriman was completely a creation of Schottenheimer, but he won;t be quite as dominant next year. For all the crap that Schottenheimer has taken recently, he was still one of the top five coaches in the current NFL, and they certtainly aren;t going to find someone as good as him out there right now after everyone has already taken other jobs.

Thats all for tonight, I'll be back soon to give you my favorites on American dol soon.

-Bender Out

Anna Nicole

2007-02-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

Just had to weigh in with my thoughts on Anna Nicole Smith. The whole thing just makes me so sad, I was pretty sure it would end like this, but that just makes it all the more tragic. To me this is a different kind of tragedy, it's not tragic in the sense that Anna Nicole would've made the world a better place, or she would've contributed a lot of happiness to her many fans. It's tragic because of the way that fame just swallowed her up and spit her out. She always struck me as a sweet but simple woman, she didn't know how to protect herself from the insanity of fame. She needed people to protect her, but there were too many people coming to her with their own agendas and their bad intentions who wanted to get a piece of her. It was probably a very painful ride for her, she couldn;t fully understand what was happening at all times, and there was no one who could help her out because there were too many people who could make a profit off of her in exchange for sitting back and watching the train wreck. It's fitting that she died in the same week where Britney and Paris were on the cover of Newsweek, they're all part of the same phenomenon, and society applauds them and praises them and enables them for all the wrong reasons. I just wish that someone had been able to help Anna Nicole before it ended like this, she could have just disappeared, gone back and lived a simple life, because even though it's a great song lyric, it isn't true, it's not better to burn out than to fade away.

A couple other things I wanted to comment on, first off, Lebron's comments about John Amaechi. Lebron essentially said that if a gay teammate didn't come out to the team, he couldn;t be trusted. A lot of people were making a big deal out of this, and while it does show a lack of understanding of the situation, I think we should ease up on Lebron. He didn't come out and condemn the homosexual lifestyle and we have to remember he's only 22 years old. Just because Lebron was blessed with tremendous athletic gifts doesn;t mean we should expect him to be worldly or brilliant. I find a lot of other people to be a lot more offensive in this regard, most importantly all the idiots who said (and I'm paraphrasing) "So long as he doesn;t try anything with me, we're cool." For some reason this sounds so ridiculous to me, as if any gay man would really want to sleep with a homophobe. The biggest disappointment in this whole thing was Jerry Sloan who apparantly used gay slurs to describe Amaechi, Sloan is a good coach, but I'll never be a fan from this day forward. Similar to the way that I'm willing to forgive Lebron due to his youth, I'm going to hold Sloan to a higher standard because he's older and is in the position of coach.

One last thing, wanted to admit my announcement of the BC Eagles demise this basketball was season was a bit premature. Still love my Eagles and I hope they can hold onto the spot in the NCAA tournament that they seemingly have all but wrapped up.

Anyway, thats all for now.

-Bender Out

And now...the aftermath

2007-02-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

So we're officially into the most boring sports time of the year, the month or so between the Super Bowl and March Madness. I actually listened to twenty minutes worth of Red Sox closer talk on sports radio today, I think I may already be sick of baseball. So the 2007 edition of the sports abyss will be filled by...John Amaechi, the first openly gay basketball player. Professional sports, the last great bastion of homophobia, (well that and the church.) I guess the next big step is to get a player that anyone has heard of to come out as gay, I'm gonna make the assumption that there is actually a star athlete out there who is gay but just doesn't feel like it is worth it to come out. For Amaechi, coming out is really not that big of a risk, he's retired from basketball and if anything this makes him more of a celebrity. So not only is he a positive role model young gay men, but he gets to sell a book about his experience and apparently continue his career as an entertainer in England. I'm not sure exactly what Amaechi does these days but from what I read he seems like the English equivalent of John Salley. On a side note, watching an interview with amaechi was kinda entertaining, maybe it was because of his english accent, but he came accross as a bit of an intellectual, so I guess that's two barriers he's breaking down, not only the first gay ex-NBA player, but the first intelligent one as well.

The only other sports news around Boston these days is the Celtics tanking so they can get either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. And recently there has been a big push to look at Durant as the true gem of next years draft class, which I find to be completely ridiculous. Durant is a lot more polished than Oden at this point, but in the long run, Oden will be the much bigger star. I've heard a lot of comparisons between durant and Kevin Garnett or Tracy McGrady. First off, Garnett is about 4 inches taller than Durant and for that reason alone is a totally different player, the McGrady comparison is actually a lot closer size-wise but T-Mac is more explosive, has a better handle and is a lot smoother in his moves. The two players who I think are much better comparisons for Durant are Jonathan Bender and Gerald Green. I think Green could be just as dominant against the weak NCAA competition. Jonathan Bender, another player who was actually bigger than durant was dominant against lesser talent but never quite made it work in the NBA and he eventually had to retire due to back issues, but he was every bit as good as durant when he was playing. So memo to Danny Ainge and all the Durant backers out there, it's nice that your boy is performing well in college but the NBA is a totally different game, and Greg Oden will be twice the player that Kevin durant is in the NBA.

So thats all i have to say about sports, but I wanted to mention a few things about TV shows that are currently coming back into full swing. I've always secretly been a fan of American Idol, I enjoy watching the tryouts where a bunch of egotards get put in their place because they don;t really have talent. But this year the show has gone out of control, they've almost stopped showing the tryouts of the actual singers and just show the really bad ones while Simon makes fun of them and Randy laughs. I enjoy it as much as anyone, but there comes a time where you have to remember what the actual point of the show is, that point being finding hot chicks who can sing so I can vote for them. All that being said, a couple of highlights from the losers this year, the skinny gay kid from New york who previously tried out for So You Think You Can Dance. I''m not sure if this kid was for real or not, but seeing him get rejected was the funniest part of this season. My second favorite was the weird kid from LA who had learned to sing by watching a DVD put out by Paula and Randy, he had apparently invented his own style that sounded like he was editing his voice in the studio, I might be willing to buy a full album by that kid. Sadly the open tryouts are over, but soon I'll decide who the hottest chick in the competition is, and I'll try to use this blog to get everyone to vote for her. Perhaps if I had tried harder last year Kelly Pickler would've beaten Katherine McPhee in the final instead of that gray haired guy in the Ford commercials.

The other big news on TV is the return of Lost. It's been moved to 10 o'clock because Idol is too powerful for even Lost to overcome, but the result is the finest night of television since the height of NBCs thursday nights in the late 80s and into the 90s. Between Friday Night Lights, American Idol and Lost you have three of the top shows on TV back to back to back. Friday Night Lights has been the best surprise so far this season, usually shows like this blow their whole load in the first few episodes, trying to make too much happen too quickly, but so far the show has been consistent and realistic. It has everything I like in my TV, realistic plots, hot chicks and that's it. So back to Lost, I'm not sure if this mid year hiatus is a good strategy, when these shows go away completely for that long, it's hard to get back into them. I'll have to see how this goes, I've been able to get back into Heroes, but I still think they'd be better off with a few interspersed re-runs as opposed to no Lost for 3 months.

Well I'm off to watch TV

-Bender Out

Not So Super

2007-02-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

I don;t exactly why I couldn;t get into the Super Bowl last night, I can think of many reasons that may have caused it but I can;t pinpoint just one. There's the obvious letdown involved with the Patriots being so close, but not adding to their dynasty. But it was more than that, I think deep down I knew that the Bears didn;t stand a chance. And when you start with a premise where you more or less know the outcome, a sloppy game that delivers the expected result really isn;t going to excite. Basically everything after the initial kick-off return seemed to be part of a slow steady unexciting win for The Colts. So my recap of the game, awesome opening kick-off return, a sloppy but intriguing first half, a haltime show I really enjoyed and then a boring dreadful second half where the Bears seemed overmatched on every level.

Of course no recap of a Super Bowl would be complete without a review of all the extras that now are as much a part of the spectacle as the game itself. I've always been a mild Prince fan, and he seems closer to being at the top of his game than Paul McCartney or The Rolling Stones were at their halftime show. Aside from U2 at SB XXXVI, Prince gave the best halftime show in recent memory. I'd have enjoyed a medley of his own hits instead of a medley of other peoples hits in the middle, but aside from that he gave a really strong performance, which is even more impressive given the weather and possible threat of Prince being fried with his electric guitar. Unfortunately the commercials didn;t live up to their normal standards. There were a couple highlights, most notably K-Fed showing he had a sense of humor by making fun of himself, this is the most likable that Kevin has ever been. Not only were the ads that they showed not funny, there were no new ads in the established series of ads, such as the office full of monkeys or my personal favorite, the Geico.com cavemen ads. So aside from Prince this was the most disappointing Super Bowl in my memory.

The most disappointing factor of the night for me was The Colts winning. It's certainly not because of Tony Dungy, a total class act who deserves any good fortune that comes his way. I't's not because of Peyton Manning either, while I'm not his biggest fan, he does seem like a nice guy and his commercials (unlike most of those aired last night) consistently make me laugh. I think the real reason that I don;t like the Colts is that douchebag Bill Polian. Polian consistently whines about officials and acts like a jerk behind the scenes during Colts games, but most importantly, I hate the way he put this Colts team together. They're built completely around their offense with defense as an afterthought. Their offensive line is full of high-priced talent most of whom were drafted high, their two wideouts were first rounders and are both among the top paid WRs in football, Dallas Clark was drafted in the first round despite the fact that their offense was already very strong and their defense was very weak, and almost every year they let their best defensive players walk (Mike Peterson, Gary Brackett, David Thornton just to name a few.) It vexes me, it vexes me very greatly, I'm quite vexed right now. The good news is that hopefully in the copycat NFL lots of teams will waste all their salary cap space on offensive stars and the Pats will wisely spend on defense and have 53 good players as opposed to a top heavy roster with glamourous stars, and the Pats will take their rightful place atoop the NFL once again.

One last point before I give up talking about the Super Bowl...Rex Grossman sucks, thats all I have to say about that. Actually not really, I'm going to expound on that. I heard a few analysts try to say that Grossman was not the reason the Bears lost this game, but in reality, if the Bears had a top 15 quarterback they could've very easily won this game. Grossman was a lot worse than his stats may indicate. when you take into account how well all the other surrounding parts were on this Bears team, a mediocre QB could've made this a competetive game. Their running game was strong, the receivers were able to get open, but Grossman threw two awful balls that were intercepted, and two others that should've been easy INTs. But the poor passes weren;t as bad as his ridiculous inability to handle the snap form center. Fumbling once due to the sloppy conditions may have been excusable, but not twice. Chicago is in a very tough spot, they have a very young QB who still someday could become good, but the rest of the team is ready now. If were in charge there I would trade for Matt Schaub and take my chances because they're drafting too low to get a star QB, and aside from Brady Quinn or Jamarcus Russell, no other rookie would stand a chance of leading a top level team. Furthermore Jeff Garcia, the best free agent QB, isn't quite good enough to lead a team to the Super Bowl either. I don;t know what it would take to get Schaub, but it might be worth it for the Bears to ante up so they could have a shot at the big pot come the end of the season.

All Right, the Super Bowl has drained me, until next time

-Bender Out

A Weeks Worth of Ranting

2007-01-28T23:04:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm done mourning the Patriots loss last week. I had to get into my first weekend without any pro football since the summer, and today I concentrated on basketball, more specifically the BC-Duke game. This is another team that BC would've handled if Sean Williams had been on the team, but sans the best defensive player in college basketball, BC got handled pretty easily. The truth is that no one really gets a fair shake when they play in Cameron Indoor Arena, Coach K has some sort of mind control over the officials. This mind control was most evident when he told the official that they really needed a ten minute break because one of their players had hyper-extended his knee. He waved his hand at the ref and said, "We don't need to take him off the court yet." Obi-Wan Kenobi would've been proud. And just so you don;t think I'm a heartless bastard, the first time I had an identical injury I appreciated all the other players in the pick-up game for actually stopping while one of them actually helped me off the court. This wasn;t the only odd situation in the game, by my count Josh McRoberts commited nine fouls, but the refs would go out of their way to call some guard on the periphery of the play for the foul McRoberts commited. I want to come clean and say that I hate Duke, almost always have, if you discount the games when I rooted for them during the Jay Williams era, I've been steadily rooting against them since the Tommy Amaker/Mark Alarie years. Every game they get every call, but that doesn;t stop that douchebag Mike Krzyzewski from arguing the ten times per game that a call doesn;t go their way. I guess thats why the Sean Williams thing makes me so mad, BC really could've smacked Duke around with Williams in the middle. One last note about the game, Duke's players all tend to be the most overrated in the country, but the king of this is point guard Greg Paulus. Paulus made the biggest mistake of his life choosing basketball over football, he was All-American in both sports, he was in fact the top QB recruit in the country. He might want to contact the football coach about playing next year, because I'm not sure there's any room for him on the coaching staff. Steve Wojciechowski and Chris Collins already have those coaching spots filled, and every year that goes by it becomes more clear to me that Johnny Dawkins will never be a successful college coach. Maybe Paulus is listening to all the Duke suck-ups who claim he's a great popint guard, but being outplayed by fellow sophomre Tyrese Rice does not bode well for his future.

I have a lot more venom for Duke but I can;t imagine anyone would be willing to read more right now, especially not my six loyal readers, so I'll move on. The only other sporting event I paid attention to this weekend was the Senior Bowl. I enjoyed watching the game pretending I have a clue about scouting for an NFL team and I would decide exactly who I want the Pats to draft this year, the answer btw is Patrick Willis inside linebacker from Ole Miss, I liked what I saw, and I now have a guy as my target for the team. My stamp of approval means that he could get drafted anywhere from the top 5 down through Mr. irrelevant, because I really have no clue, in fact it may actually be a bad sign if the Pats end up drafting him, because I damn near threw a party when they drafted Andy Katzenmoyer in the 90s. Anyway this is the second to last football game where the players care until next September, it was bittersweet. Can;t wait til the draft so I can predict that the Pats will win the Super Bowl next year.

I actually did follow one other sports story this weekend, Roger Federer, the greatest tennis player of all-time winning the Australian Open. I know I said I'd only followed the two sporting events, so I guess that makes me a liar don;t it? Federer is such a dominant force, nothing would please me more than him winning the Grand Slam this year, it's a long shot mainly because playing on clay is almost a different sport than on grass or hardcourt. I'd really love watching Federer beat Nadal this year, Nadal is very inlikable from my perspective. The main point is, for all the talk we hear about Tiger Woods, you might want to watch the most dominant athlete in any sport next time there's a tennis tournament on TV.

The Red Sox might be acquiring Todd Helton, and I have mixed feelings about it. Helton has a huge contract that doesn;t expire until he's 39, and even though the Rockies would be picking up half of it, it's clear that Helton is on the decline. This contract could become an anchor dragging them down in a couple years, if not sooner. As for Helton's actual ability, there are so many questions, he played in Colorado and his power numbers have taken a nose-dive since the league started steroid testing. Aside from those factors the move just feels wrong, it feels kinda like one of those moces that has done in the Yankees the last few years, going out and acquiring a big name while giving up on young players and character guys (in this case it would be Mike Lowell.) Even if Helton does perform, the move could end up not working out in the long run.

One last sports note, I'm tickled by the debacle that is the Cowboys coaching search. When are these overly involved owners gonna realize that they are actually hurting the value of their franchises? Jerry Jones is joining Al Davis and Daniel Snyder as the biggest meddlers in football. The Cowboys seem to have a choice between Jason Garrett and Norv Turner. Turner might actually be able to coach, but I think the jury is out at best, and Garrett is a complete unkown who probably isn;t ready. Why are these the best options? Mainly because of Jones and his favorite acquisition of the last year TO. No one wants to coach Owens and similarly they don;t really want to work for the type of owner that would bring TO in.

OK, that's all for now, I'll give my Oscar Nomination opinions sometime soon, maybe even make my predictions. But for now...

-Bender Out

Nothing Left for Me

2007-01-23T08:55:00.000-08:00

Well it had to happen at somepoint, the Pats lost a big game when it looked like they had it won. Not only were they way out in front, leading 21-3 and driving for what looked like another score that might have been enough to deflate Indy, but even at the very end all they had to do was get one first down when they were up three with just over two minutes to go, and they had the ball. Anyway, I keep thinking back to the scene in the movie Pleasantville, where William H Macy says "maybe that's where the saying comes from, 'You can't win'em all.' Of course they weren;t really gonna win every big game, but after beating the Chargers you thought that just maybe they would win 'em all. Anyway I was feeling kinda sour yesterday, and every time I tried to talk about the game with someone I was disappointed that they didn;t share my exact [popint of view even though I wasn;t sure exactly how I wanted to react to the game either. I figured out that I wanted to secretly blame the refs by pointing out bad calls, well claiming to be giving all the credit to Indy. So my strategy would be lead off by saying, "I'm not looking to make excuses." Or I'd come up with, "I'm not saying it was the refs fault." But then I felt I had free reign to list the worst calls of the game. Quickly now, Troy Brown's offensive PI, Ellis Hobbs' defensive PI, the no call when Reche Caldwell was tackled in the end zone that should've been PI, and of course the obligatory roughing the passer call which has become a farce this season.

Ok, so now that I've tried to sneak my excuses, without even mentioning that all The Pats players had the flu, and the Colts turned the heat up in the building to the high 80s, I do wanna say that over the years I've grown to appreciate the Colts. I still think Bill Polian is a douchebag, but Tony Dungy strikes me as a great guy, and given what he went through last year I can think of no one else that I's rather root for with the Pats being eliminated. Same goes for Peyton Manning, who has put oput consistently funny commercials for a couple years now, and seems like a nice guy. If tom Brady can be pals with Peyton, I guess I can root for him to win one Super Bowl.

As for the NFC championship, well I quite enjoyed that one. It seemed like evryone had penciled the Saints into the Super Bowl, but the Bears D just shut'em down, The Saints made too many mistakes. Reggie Bush's catch was great and i had no problem with him pointing at Brian Urlacher on his way into the end zone, but after that play everything went right for Chicago. I love it went the real favorite steps up and wins in a game like this, it reminded me of the first time the Pats and colts met in the AFC championship game. The Colts were a lot more glitzy and everyone thought the Colts would run them off the field (similar to the second half of sunday's game) but the Pats D shut'em down, similar to the Bears.

Hopefully the Super Bowl will be great, I'm thinking the Colts will win comfortably, maybe 24-17 or something of that ilk. I think there are just too many weapons for the Bears to hold down, and their offense can;t afford to get into a shootout.

After the super Bowl I'll have nothing to care about sports-wise til March Madness, and with BC out of the mix I probably will have to look toward the NFL Draft for entertainment. I'll be back soon and complain about the Oscars.

til then

-Bender Out

My Eagles Going Down

2007-01-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

Tough week for the Bender. Wednesday night I was minding my own business, patiently waiting for the Pats game this Sunday, when out of nowhere I was blindsided by the news that BCs basketball season was over. BC Kicked Sean Williams and Akida McClain off the team. Sean Williams is perhaps the most talented player they've had since Dana Barros, but I guess his off the court indescretions were too much for Al skinner to put up with, so instead of a possible ACC championship run they'll now be lucky if they make the NCAA tournament. Williams will no doubt go home and get ready for the NBA draft, where he'll still be a firt round choice although his chances at being a lottery pick, whereas Akida McClain will probably transfer somewhere and finish out his college career and head to Europe for a few years. BC isn;t saying exactly what happened, most likely they want to protect the kids' reputations, but speculation is running wild, and I can;t help but think that the rumors will be a lot worse than the reality. So BC will just have to settle for being a team that does things the right way, as opposed to a team who is playing into the sweet sixteen this coming March. They must've done something really wrong to get kicked off, when you consider all the things they put up with from Jermaine Watson, Andrew Bryant and Ryan Sidney, but for now I'm of the opinion that they should've kept them on til the end of the season and told them to move on this summer, if you wanted to protect their reputations, that would be the best way.

OK, onto one of my favorite subjects, steroids. Sammy Sosa is making a comeback, and I'm gonna give my exact theory on why. Sosa was of course one of the most obvious steroid users over the last ten years, and when the MLB put in their supposed tougher policies, he panicked and got off the juice. He wasn;t the only one to do so, Pudge Rodriguez, Bret Boone and Jason Giambi also reacted this way, and quickly they became far inferior to their previous selves. Sammy went from being one of the most feared power hitters of his generation to an undersized left-fielder who looked and hit like a base-stealing second baseman. The smarter players like Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield, knew that the designer steroids they were using were cutting edge and couldn;t be caught by current tests, so long as the did it correctly. A quick look at the lack of players caught in the NFL showed that the mad scientists making steroids could easily beat a urine test. So the players who had kicked the habit had three choices. First option destroy their reputations by looking smaller and not producing on the field. Second option, walk away from the game and pretend that the problem was they had gotten too old like so many players befoer them. Third option, get back on the juice and reclaim their past glory. So really all that has happened is that Sammy, Like Giambi before him, is back on the juice, and he's gonna have a pretty good year with The Rangers, I'm predicting 30 homers and 90 RBIs, if not better.

I wanted to comment on the recent coaching developments in the NFL. Cam Cameron, the offensive coordiator for The Chargers, was hired by the Dolphins, and this is great news for the rest of the AFC East. If you had to point to the number one reason that The Patriots beat The Chargers last weekend, it was because Cam Cameron didn;t just run the ball all day with saLTy. He went for style points and mixed in the passing game, unltimately opening the door for the Pats to pull off the upset. Really Cameron was a guy who looked like a genius because he had the best running back in the game and the best tight end around as well. I'm not gonna complete write them off, maybe he has really good organizational skills, and he'll hire a great staff, but for now I think the Dolphins have made a big mistake. Of course it could be worse, The Raiders have endured just the latest of their many recent public embarassments. Steve Sarkisian, who by all acounts was a huge stretch as a head coaching choice to begin with, turned them down. The Raiders really need to change the man in charge, Al Davis was once a great team president, but now he's just a bad punchline. Until someone takes over for Al, The Raiders will be stuck at the bottom.

Lastly I had to weigh in on this ridiculous situation in connecticut where a substitute teacher could receive 40 years in prison because some pornographic pop-ups appeared on her screen while she was teaching, which undoubtedly has scarred these middle school students. The worst part of this story was that during the trial, the supposed "expert" gave false information to the jury, which was most likely due to the fact that he wasn't highly educated on the workings of the internet. But because he was brought in as a police expert, his testimony was trusted moreso than an actual expert testifying for the defense. I want to make clear that I don't support the showing of porn to little teens and tweens in school, but the idea that this poor woman will go to jail and will have to register as a sex offender because of internet pop-ups is bullshit.

Ok,

-Bender Out

MLK day

2007-01-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

First things first, wanted to make sure everyone took some time out to remember Martin Luther King today and the many ways that he improved this country. Sometimes we take things for granted in this country, I talk about things like the history of baseball or basketball going back to the 50s or before and I never really remember how different the world really was back then. These athletes that we all admire weren't always allowed to share the same spaces in public, couldn;t drink at the same water fountains, and were forced to go to inferior school, so just take a moment and appreciate, and if you feel the spirit, make a stand of your own to fight injustice.

Ok, nobody really wants to read my thoughts on serious things, so ...On with the Chlorophyll.

The Patriots did it again. Sometimes I let a small bit of doubt dreep in to my head about how good the Pats really are, but then they beat the best team in football when the chips are down, and I remember how great they really are and have been for the last six years. The Chargers seemed like they should've blown the Pats out by at least 14, but the Pats made enough big plays and the Chargers made just as many big mistakes. The Pats offensive line was able to protect Brady well despite all the hype for Merriman and crew. Merriman was able to do his stupid "juiced up" dance where he mimics putting a needle in his arm, but it only came on an incomplete pass, I guess hurries are a lot more in style than they used to be. The other group that came up big was the much maligned receiving corps. Gaffney and Caldwell both had big games and of course Troy Brown made one of the great plays in recent playoff history by stripping Marlon McCree. And as for LT's little bitch session after the game? Maybe your team should've waited til after you won to celebrate. The whole idea that Merriman has a celebration dance to mimic shows who the real idiot in the scenario is. I wish the Pats could've shown class like Drayton Florence, who cost his team three points with his stupid headbutt of Daniel Graham. Perhaps we can put this whole nickname debate to bed, Lawrence Taylor is the only LT, LaDanian Tomlinson can now be known as saLTy.

The other three games are all a blur to me at this point. The Colts defense has really stepped up in their first two playoff games, but I can;t help but put part of the blame on the offenses that they've faced. Neither of their opponents are known for their offenses and they definitely couldn;t make the Colts pay for keying completely on the run. That being said, I doubt Manning will look as bad next week as he has so far, unless of course he really can't perform in the playoffs. This weeks AFC championship game should be another great game that might as well be referred to as the Super Bowl.

In the NFC, the games were very exciting. I don't necessarily think of the Seahawks or Bears as great teams, but it kept me on the edge of my seat, and they made enough good plays that I could see either of them winning the NFC title. The Bears pulled it out, but I'm still picking the Saints next sunday. The Saints ran oll over the Eagles, and while the Bears had their moments last week, they couldn;t really figure out how to stop Shaun Alexander. So I envision Bush and McCallister having huge days and leading America's new team into the Super Bowl.

As for anything else going on out there, I guess the Chris Webber signing is notable. He claims to be feeling better than he has in years, but unless they're gonna use him as a seventh or eighth man, his softness makes the pont moot. He wasn;t enough to put a team over the top when he was healthy, I can;t imagine that he can help The Pistons now that he's washed up physically.

So everyone has been asking me for a prediction and I'm coming out with one, Wes adn Svetlana will win the challenge this thursday. I of course am speaking of the RW/RR challenge: The Duel. With CT and his meltdown last week, the game is wide open. CT showed his true colors, He seemed to be dangerously close to ending his MTV career by attacking someone. They all laughed and celebrated when Beth was eliminated the same way, and she was apparantly able to handle it with a little more class than the pride of the mass-holes, the local gorilla, CT. It seems like they give CT the same story arc eveytime he does one of these shows, they convince you that he's being nicer and he's a better guy than you realized, and at the last minute he exposes himself as a douchebag. The recurring charcters are just another reason why this is the best reality TV show out there right now. Hopefully the WWE will capitalize in CT and higher him to fight The Miz in a steel cage death match.

on a final note, I saw an old clip of Martha Stewart on the MTV awards when she made it clear that she wanted a piece of Busta Rhymes. This was the same time that Busta was first introducing "What Da Dilly Yo" into the American vernacular, just to give you a point of reference. Anyway, I realized that Martha Stewart is a fun fun lady, and is one of my favorite cougars out there. So, Martha, if you're out there, call me.

So I'll be here by my phone, until later.

-Bender Out

Weekend Update

2007-01-13T11:54:00.000-08:00

A lot went on this week and there were more than a few things I wanted to touch on.

first off, the Hall of Fame voting for baseball. I can't stand how Mark McGwire is being singled out as the only steroid user in baseball. I think the writers are still ignorant to how widespread steroid use was and still is in baseball. Somehow everyone wants to look at McGwire, and Barry Bonds as the only cheaters in the history of the game. I don;t really mind if McGwire is held out for one year, and then let in, that way all the writers can pat themselves on the back and then make excuses for all the other players who the public hasn;t really pointed the finger at yet. How is it that everyone is just willing to assume that Cal Ripken was completely clean? Sure he never became a complete monster, but he was a pretty big guy and he's also the only guy in history to play every single day for more than 2600 games in a row. And it's safe to assume that while both amphetamines and steroids were prevalent during his career, he was completely clean? There's just as much evidence against Ripken as there is against McGwire. McGwire's biggest mistake was not boldly lying and going on the attack the way Rafael Palmeiro did. Palmeiro would be headed for the hall today if he hadn't messed up his masking agents and subsequently failed a steroid test. I wish the writers would get off their collective pedestals, they all ignored it and made excuses while it was happening, so I wish they would stop trying to cover their own asses by taking the hardline against a select few. where do they draw the line, will Jeff Bagwell get in? What about Craig Biggio? I have suspicions about those guys, so should I start lobbying the writers to keep them out as well when their time comes?

Just a quick steroid anecdote, I remember in the 95 playoffs, Albert Belle hit a homerun and the Red Sox reacted by taking his bat to supposedly check for cork. Belle started shouting at the Red sox bench and he point to his massive bicep, essentially saying "this is how I do it." Looking back now it's ironic that he might as well have been saying, this is is where I'm actually cheating, it's not that I'm corking my bat, it's that I'm juicing my body. Sadly, I doubt Belle will ever make the hall either.

My last note on the Hall of Fame is to say that I am on the side of more players making it. I have long thought it ridiculous that Jim Rice is not in the Hall. From 1975 to 1986 he was the best hitter in baseball, and he's essentially being punished for not being able to hang around for two or three more years and perform as a mediocre DH. Another guy who belongs in is Jack Morris. He was a big game pitcher who never really cared about his stats. If the Tigers had a six nothing lead, he didn;t mind giving up a couple runs so long as it meant he could save the bullpen, a lesson that Pedro Martinez never learned. I also wouldn't mind if Bert Blyleven, Dale Murphy and Goose Gossage were inducted, none of them would be the worst player in the hall, in fact I'd rather have had any of them over Ozzie Smith.

Enough about the Baseball Hall of Fame, I probably won;t even think about it again until the inductions, at which time I'll complain all over again. Wanted to touch on my beloved game of basketball, more specifiaclly the Celtics. Tony Allen went down the other night, and I'm just gonna gloss over the fact that it happened after the whistle on a needless dunk attempt. It's an extra tough situation for Allen who was playing the best basketball of his life, and now is out for the year. The heartbreak was evident when local media member Greg Dickerson was near tears as he analyzed the injury after the game, it looked just like Ron Harper's injury almost 20 years back when he was playing for the Clippers, and Harper was never quite the same. The Celtics are down to nine available players and it is now even more clear that they should be more ocncerned with getting a top 5 draft pick and start looking to the future as opposed to trying to make the playoffs. Tell Paul Pierce to take his time re-habbing whatever injury he has and have Danny Ainge buy season tickets to the Ohio State basketball team.

The most important thing going on this weekend is of course the NFL playoffs. These next two weekends represent the most exciting time in football this weekend's games should be awesome, just awesome, especially in the AFC. I've never really been so ambivalent about two games as these AFC semifinals. I wouldn;t be shocked by any result in either game. I was thinking about going on record with predictions, but I'm too nervous that I could somehow jinx my Pats with such boldness. The NFC games are equally hard to predict, but I will say that the winner of the Saints-Eagles game will be my poick to lose in SuperBowl XLI.

That's all I'm giving today. I'll be back soon to badmouth John Thompson and Chris Webber and may even throw my two cents in on Martha Stewart. Til then...

-Bender Out

Shocker

2007-01-09T01:14:00.000-08:00

The obvious thing for me to admit here is that I had no inkling that a Florida blowout was even possible. I can't actually remember a result as shocking as this, I thought back and the closest was the '84 elecetion, when I seven years old I thought for sure that Mondale would win because everyone I knew was supporting him, and then he got blown out of the water. So congratulations to UF, their defense was dominant and it seemed like Thee OSU had no chance of moving the ball, especially with Ted Ginn Jr. on the sidelines. I kinda expected Florida's offense to perform well, if I'd predicted a score it would've been 38-28 Ohio State, so I always had respect for Chris Leak and the offense. I just can;t wait for these receivers to join all their fellow Gators on the Patriots sidelines, maybe Dallas Baker can finally be the big receiver they've been searching for. So long story short, my theory about the SEC was total crap and The Gators and their SEC brethren were every bit as giood as most everyone said all year, if not even better. And while the initial shock of seeing Florida dominate was huge, the game became very boring just after Troy Smith's fumble at the end of the first half, setting up Florida's 20 point halftime lead.

I'm not too pleased to see Florida win, I've never really been a Florida fan, but I think that seeing Ohio State lose may have been the preferential result. I'm still a bit acrimonious after the OSU upset my beloved 'Canes a few years back, and I feel like karma was against them setting them up as the upset victims this time around.

So while this game wasn;t very exciting, I loved Sunday's NFL games. Seeing the Pats handle the Jets with relative ease was very satisfying, and it has a lot of the locals believing again. I thought the Pats had the third best chance to win the Super Bowl going into these playoffs and they really backed it up. Their defensive line has to be considered the best in the league at this point, three guys who are legitimitely pro bowl level, and if anyone has a chance to stop LT, it's this group. I also enjoyed Jabar Gaffney's performance, I've wanted him to have a bigger role since he signed back in week 4 or whenever, and it was nice to see him deliver when given the shot.

Almost equally as satisfying was the demise of The Giants. I've made clear my feelings on this squad, very overrated, and yet still underachieving based on their actual talent. Also i was pleased to hear Quadry Ismail voice a reasonable opinion on Tiki Barber legacy, The Missile said that Tiki didn;t belong in the Hall of Fame and was more on the level of "Ring of honor" player. Maybe he can be remembered as a great Giant, but not an all-time great. On the other side of that game, I continue to be surprised by how much I like the Eagles without McNabb playing. I respect McNabb, but I find the team led by Jeff Garcia so much more likeable.

Before tonight's game I watched a little Deal or No Deal because I couldn;t take anymore talk about the game. and I have a definite method in case I actually make it on the show someday. I'm gonna pick-off the cases based on how hot the model is holding the case. I'd pick the ugliest model first then knock off the uglier models accordingly. so hopefully the ugliest one is holding a million dollar case and then one of the really hot blonded model is holding the 750,000. I'm going on record here just because i couldn;t tell anyone while I was on the show, I wouldn;t want to hurt any of the models' feelings.

One last note, I saw that Queen Latifah will be hosting the People's Choice Awards, which led me to one question, when did she get to be so damn famous? She's likable enough, but I can;t remember one single instance where I was bowled over by her talent. She's just kinda out there and seems to pop up all over the place. The most infuriating thing about her continued climb up the ladder of fame, is that it really decreases the chances of a Living Single reunion special. In lieu of a reunion special, I just don;t know where I can possibly catch another look at Kim Fields, very hot, and I miss her.

Thats all I've got tonight.

Oh wait, I just was contacted by Sean Penn, he gave me this satement to print:

"In response to The Bender's question about 'when did [Queen Latifah] become so damn famous?' I'd say right about the time she made us all laugh, cry, smile and shiver with her immense talents."

-Bender Out

It's been a while

2007-01-06T23:56:00.000-08:00

I've been relaxing a bit too much lately and as a result I haven't mentioned a few of the important things that have been going on.

Our 38th President Gerald Ford died and I didn't mention it, well the reason is that he was just before my time. A lot of people said you really had to be there to appreciate what he did for this country after Watergate, so apparently he did more than pardon Nixon and fall down some stairs. Also contrary to some published reports, he was not eaten by wolves, so President Taft still holds that distinction of being the only Pres to die like that.

On a more serious and sad note, I've been sickened over the whole Darrent Williams situation. Just so senseless that someone so young and talented, and by all accounts a person who wanted to make a difference, would be killed. He apparently had a tough background but had set himself straight and worked to help the youth of Denver take the same path. I don;t know what all happened on new years eve, but it's a senseless tragedy.

Just a quick note, today on CBS they showed women's college basketball all day, and I honestly have no idea who watches this crap. Can we just all agree that basketball sucks when you take away the extraordinary athleticism. I wish I had a little more pull in this world so no one would have to watch this crap on their TV when there are so many men's games that coiuld be on in their place.

Ok, onto the fun stuff, as most of you must know by now, I'm best defined as a hater when it comes to sports. And I was given plenty of ammo for a couple of my favorite targets during the first day of NFL playoff games. I never though much of Herm Edwards as a coach, and his team was an abomination this week. Larry Johnson had fewer carries than anyone could've imagined, especially given the close score, but I'd say that their lackluster performance is far more damning than his play calling. Maybe people understand why he was shown the door in NY.

The other thing that fueled my hateration was Tony Romo's big choke on the possible game-winning field goal. Romo has been so overhyped for so long, (plus he stole my girl Carrie Underwood) so I couldn;t help but smile when he became the goat.

Thats all I'm putting out for today, I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about tomorrow's games, so long as the Pats win. So for now...

-Bender Out

Inter-holiday post

2006-12-30T13:33:00.001-08:00

A few things to get off my chest between the two holidays.

I just watched BC achieve a higher level of mediocrity than they had in some time. With their come from behind bowl victory over Navy they had their first ten win season since doug fluite was in Chestnut Hill. I definitely root for BC, but it's hard to get very excited about anything they do these days, they lose just enough to stay out of the top 15 and elite program status. Things will be changing next year, whether that's a good or bad thing remains to be seen, but I'll welcome the change either way, maybe they'll finally come up with a big win, and make a run at a big bowl. I'll definitely miss the pride that come with supporting a program that is atop the list for graduation rate, but if they make a BCS bowl even once in the next five years, I'm willing to make the swap.

Speaking of the Eagles, former BC coach Tom Coughlin may be coaching his final game for the Giants. The big news yesterday was that Jeremy Shockey will miss tonight's game against the 'Skins. It just begs the question, who will make a crucial drop then throw his teammates and coaches under the bus after this loss? Tiki Barber is always a candidate for that, but shockey is more of a sure thing. I think for everyone's sake they should lose tomorrow and then the team can be blown up and take a totally different direction. While I think that it's too early to give up on Eli, if the same questions are being asked about him a year from now as seem to be asked after their recent losses, it might be time to move onto to a new QB as well.

So once Coughlin is fired, there will be much intrigue over who moves into NY as the new head coach. And while talk of both Belichick and Charlie Weis swirls, I doubt either possibility will come to fruition. Maybe I'm wrong and these guys think as higly of the Giants as all the media seems to, but it'll be a real shock to me. I'd be more interested to see a wedding between Coughlin and 'Bama. The job remains open, and they're probably making a big run for Nick Saban, but if Saban turns them down, Coughlin would be a great consolation prize. It may be better for Alabama in the long run. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is to be turned down by your first choice. As wonderful as it is for Urban Meyer to be in the national title game, I can't imagine that Notre Dame is longing for him over Charlie Weis. Of course that will all be moot if Weis is coaching the Giants next year.

I saw Rocky Balboa last night, and I enjoyed it. While there shouldn't be any oscar buzz around it, I can't imagine that people will be asking for their money back. in some ways the movie felt like one of those reality tv re-union shows, there were so many clips, flashbacks and references to the old movies (and rightly so,) that I wanted to go back and watch those movies again when I got home. For what it's worth, the original Rocky for me is one of the more timeless movies out there.

While I'm talking about movies, I wanted to mention the fact that on Ebert and Roeper today, A.O. Scott referred to Clint Eastwood as the best director making movies today. At first I was taken aback by it, but upon much deliberation (at least 15 minutes of thought,) I have to agree. Furthermore the only reason he doesn't get credit for it is because he just doesn't carry himself as an Auteur or genius, he just makes great movies, excuse me, films that speak for themselves.

Well, that's what I got today, have a safe and happy new year.

-Bender Out

Holiday post

2006-12-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

Just a few things I had on my mind when I took a break form the holiday madness.

I''m overjoyed that the Celtics didn't end up trading for Allen Iverson. Unless they were able to trade for him without giving up Green and Jefferson while still keeping all their future first round picks the trade would have given them a two year run where they were "interesting" but never truly title contenders, then they would have fallen back into mediocrity, completely undermining all the sacrifice they've made during the Danny Ainge era. If you want to reward the fans who've stood by the Celtics during their rough times, you have stop looking for quick fixes and make moves where the end result is a championship. Trading for AI would've resulted in two years of second round playoff losses, and no matter how fun it is to watch Iverson break a defenders ankles, winning a title is a lot more fun, and after Iverson's short run the team would quickly fall back into mediocrity. With the Iverson to Boston saga completely over I want to note that the argument for the trade which enraged me the most was the whole "Pierce would be fine playing with Iverson, because he had to share the ball with 'Toine" argument. I don;t know who originated this argument, it was either started by an Antoine hater, someone who didn;t ever watch those Celtics teams, or someone who doesn't truly understand the game. Anotine Walker deferred to Paul Pierce almost from day one. Antoine has always been willing to do what's best for the team to win. For all his faults, Walker was a winner, and he understood that Paul was the man on those teams, something that Iverson would never have been willing to accept.

As far as Iverson going to Denver, this is just a disaster waiting to happen. Iverson will do his best to be a team player and distributor once 'Melo comes back, but it's really not in his nature. Once the chips are on the line in the playoffs, Iverson will instinctively try to be "The Man" and the team will crumble, I'm predicting a first round loss again in the playoffs. Maybe in the Eastern Conerfence they could fool us for a while and make it to the confernce fuinals, but this team is not a good blend, Iverson will probably be aksing for a trade behind the scenes by the off-season, and if George Karl is still around, he might want to grant AI that wish.

So that's my final say on this whole Allen Iverson saga. Moving onto a far more interesting sport, I was driven top madness yesterday while watching the Cowboys/Eagles match-up. If I had seen Carrie Underwood one more time, I may have thrown my TV out the window. The only thing that enabled me to tough it out was the complete thrashing the Eagles laid on the 'Boys. I will admit that part of what annoyed me was just the idea of Romo hooking up with the very hot Underwood, who while hot as an American Idol contestant, is now almost twice as hot. Romo doesn;t deserve such a prize. Hopefully the hype around Romo and the rest of his fraud team will be dying down now. On the other side of the coin, I can;t be more happy for Jeff Garcia who has undergone a total redemption and now should get his own starting job in the NFL. Last night must've been extra sweet for him, beating TO, the man who publicly blased Garcia and questioned his sexuality. Garcia has always been a class act and it feels good to see him beat TeRash in a big spot like that.

I watched The DaVinci Code yesterday, and it kicked ass. I don;t what all the hullbaloo was about last summer when it came out, it was a good movie, kept you on the edge of your seat and would've been well wrth the trip to the theater. This strikes me as another situation wehere people wanted the movie to fail after all the hype before-hand. A phenomenon I've been accutely aware of ever since Waterworld in the mid-90s (which remains an underrated movie.)

Not to be the last one to announce it, but the Justin Timberlake video episod of Satruday Night Live was the funniest the show has been in years. It was like they pulled out all the stops, brought back some of the funniest skit and ideas from the last couple years and threw them all together for one episode. It goes beyond the "Dick in a Box" video (which was as good as anything on the show since Will Ferrell left.) They had a new Target sketch, which is probably the best current recurring sketch going right now, the brought back Jimmy Fallon for another phenomenal installment of the Barry Gibb talk show. And Justin Timberlake proved that he's a pretty funny guy, his best display of this was as the singing cup of soup collecting money for "homelessville."

I wanted to say a sad goodbye to James Brown, who gave us great music for so long, and more recently gave us some great moments of unintentional comedy. I'm not black, but I have to think that if I was, Say It Loud (I'm black and I'm Proud) would be my jam, as it is I'll just have to pump it when no ones around, with a little Living in America mixed in.

Thats all I got for today, hopefully I'll be back soon.

-Bender Out

David Stern...OC

2006-12-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

So the fallout just came down from the Knicks-Nuggets fight. 'Melo was suspended for 15 games. This is F'n ridiculous. I didn't exactly review the tape 30 times, I only watched it thrice. But to me this is just another example of David Stern being completely outta control. A couple years ago when ron Artest went into the stands, he should've been suspended for about 30 games, max. And Anthony's punch the other night warranted about 5 games, but the truth is that Stern has too much power, and is going completely unchecked. I think the Nuggets should stage some sort of blue flu on the road against a team who they would probably lose to anyway, so maybe the next time the Nuggets play the Spurs they should put their five worst players out there, milk the 24 second clock down to zero on every possesion, and do everything in their power to get a final score of 50-34. This is the type of thing he makes a stand on, while wasting everyone's time with that stupid new ball. How generous of you to switch back to the leather ball, can we kiss the ring or just go straight to kissing your ass sir?

Anyway, a few things to be brought up here. Mardy Collins got what was coming to him, he deserved to get punched in the face by 'Melo. I think that tackling someone by the neck when they're running full speed and they aren't expecting it is a lot more dangerous than punching a guy in the face when he's looking right at you. Nate Robinson is a little psychopath if he wasn't playing in the zoo that is the current New York Knicks organization he would be in the NBDL (unless he got kicked out of there for being such an idiot), he's a 5-8 shooting guard who did more than anyone else to escalate the situation the other night.

Most importantly, this incident should be the end of Isiah Thomas' embaressing tunre with the Knicks, and really should be the last time anyone invests in Isiah at all. to hear him basically say that it was the Nuggets fault for having starters on the floor. Isiah is a complete idiot, he wore out his welcome in Toronto, he bankrupted the CBA, he coached a talented Pacers team into mediocrity and he's turned the Knicks into the punchline of the NBA. Oh, and he still doesn;t realize that he wasn't among the most elite players of his era. When he gets fired at the end of the year, I pray that none of the NBA broadcasting networks hires him to do games, if they do I promise that I'll stop watching games on that network.

Well, I've said my piece. Happy Birthday Molly.

-Bender Out

News of the day

2006-12-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

A bunch of stuff going on that I wanted to comment on.

I was very sad to hear about Peter Boyle's death, I really loved his role on Everybody Loves Raymond. In my family we used to joke that the family on the show was exactly like our own, of course that comparison only worked if you eliminated my middle brother, but still. Anyway he used to give me a lot of laughs and it made yesterday a little bit sad.

Big news for the Red Sox who stared down Scott Boras and lived to tell the tale. We don;t know exactly how good Matsuzaka will be but it's hard not to get excited over the signing. I predict at least 25 wins for Daisuke this year, and a world series MVP. there were a lot of intriguing stories being leaked from behind the scenes, my favorite being the one from The Boston Herald who said that The Seibu Lions told Matsuzaka that if he didn't sign this deal they would put him in the minors and he wouldn't be a free agent in two years, and they also would put him up for posting next year either. So Theo was aided greatly by the Lions who earned 51 million, a number which is more amazing when you consider that their team is only valued at around 17 million.

Enough gushing about my man Dice, the real burning issue for me is the whole AI saga. I've long been of the opinion that Iverson is the most overrated player in the NBA. Just last night I heard someone refer to Iverson as one of the best two players in the league. That's a laugh. Iverson is definitely not now one of the Best two players in the NBA, I don;t really think he's ever been close to the best. He's a shoot first point guard or undersized two guard depending on your opinion, he dribbles too much, he dominates the ball, and most importantly he makes his teammates WORSE! There's a reasone that the Sixers aren't getting any good offers, it's because AI only has a couple good years left and he's not the type who makes a team into a contender for those two years. The team who gets him will sell more tickets for a couple years and they'll hurt their long term prospects. If the Celtics trade for him they'll probably win the Atlantic Division or whatever it's called now and they'll lose in the first round, they'll lose a couple good young players and they'll undermine their future for a couple years of improved mediocrity.

Which brings me to my next point, after much deliberation I've decided Danny Ainge has to go. Danny has drafted well but aside from that he's been bad. I've been reassesing him since the debacle that was the Sebastian Telfair trade, and I've decided he just lucked into a few good draft picks, and he really doesn't have what it takes to build a winner. His first round draft picks have been as follows Marcus Banks, Kendrick Perkins, Al Jefferson, Delonte West, Tony Allen, and Gerald Green, plus he's done well with second rounders including Ryan Gomes and Leon Powe. as a whole they look good, although I'd say that Banks and Allen are not very good. The real problem has been with signings and trades. He signed Brian Scalabrine to a pretty big contract, and he's awful. He gave Mark Blount a huge contract then he was a big bust. But the most disappointing thing has been the trades, starting with the original Antoine Walker trade and most recently with the Wally trade followed by the draft night deal he's ruining the C's. I don;t necessarily have a replacement in mind but at the very least it's time to start looking. Maybe another time I'll give my thoughts on the Celtics owners who strike me as having no clue as to how to build a strong organization.

Lastly, I wanted to throw my name out there for the BC head football coaching job, I'm very good at NCAA football for PS2 and regularly build dynasties. That's all for today.

-Bender Out

Some things I've been thinking about

2006-12-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

So it snowed today, and now it's like 20 dergrees outside. I couldn;t be more pissed, but this reminded me of back when I was in school as a young'n. the first time it would snow you'd see all the kids acting like it was the greatest thing ever, that really used to piss me off. I wanted to hit each and every one of them, but if I had done that, I would have gotten in trouble not these dolts celebrating snow as if they'd never seen it before. So refrained, and i regret it to this day. I know this sounds completely crazy, but if any of my readers are surprised by this, well then my readership is much larger than I thought. Anyway hopefully the cold can go away for a few more weeks.

Continuing on a recent theme, I saw a picture of Katherine McPhee online, she's really skinny these days, but I can't help bu miss the Kat, she was sexy in a different wayand I'll never forget how she filled out that gray dress on the American Idol semi-finals show. I can't help but blame Paris Hilton for this, soon Kat will look completely emaciated and she'sll be clubbing with Paris, then a week later Paris will be caught on tape talking smack about my poor little Kat. Fame, it is such a vicious cycle.

You ever thought you had a really good idea then later realized that when it came to fruition you realized it sucked. A few years back I thought it'd be cool to have a movie about how native americans actaully lived even with the authentic language they used. anyway now that Mel gibson's movie is coming out I think it looks god-awful. I had trouble sitting through the passion, and there's no way I'm going to see this. Why you ask? because I like movie where I don;t have to read, I'm willing to do it for a really good movie but in a case where the movie is made by americans I shouldn't have to spend my time reading.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is on tonight, it's fun to watch this now that I'm older because not only for the sentimental value, but for the unintentional comedy of how of over the top preachy this movie is. It's kinda like a good episode of A Different World, it works on many levels. It's my second favorite of all the classic Christmas specials. Nothing will ever compare to the true genius that is Merry Christmas Charlie Brown. It would be worth watching for the dance scenes alone, but when you throw in the anti-commercialism message which seems to be a little more true every year you have to hail it as the all-time greatest, I'll admit that every year when Linus gives his speech I shed a tear.

BTW if you asked me to rank the most underrated TV stars of the last twety years, my list starts and ends with Dewayne Wayne from Different World. In fact I can't help but think that there should be more stars who got their start on this show. Not only hasd the world forgoten Kadeem Hardison, but whatever happened to Jasmine Guy, she was huge, and I expected more from Cree Summer than to just hear her voice at the end of blockbuster video commercials. to the many movie producers out there who are reading this, I think it's important that you realize I speak for the masses when I say put them in a movie.

All Right, have a good weekend readers.

-Bender Out

Be careful what you wish for...

2006-12-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

The warning in the title goes to Tom O'Brien former head coach of the BC football team. Tom moved onto a place with better facilities and a higher contract offer. you can't blame a guy for doing this, he'll make a lot more money at NC State but I predict that in five years Tom O'Brien will be looking for a new job. BC was the perfect job for O'Brien, a school where they would be satisfied with nine or ten wins and enjoy a top 25 finish and a school that would be just as proud of the teams tremendous graduation rate. The fans at NC State may be satisfied with that for a year or two, but once they see O'Brien's poor game coaching and they lose too many games that they should be winning they'll turn on him. I predict that by year three we'll be hearing about firetomobrien.com and a lot of announcers will come to his defense, but it won't matter the NC State administration will become frustrated by too many unexplainable losses and too many low top 25 finishes from a team that could've easily been in the top ten.

Happy 50th birthday to Larry Bird, I know you're an avid reader of the blog, so i just wanted to give a shout out.

The Celtics completed a very important loss last night, they currently sit as the third to last place team overall a half game ahead both the Grizzlies and the Bobcats. A loss like the one last night is really as good as two losses, not only did they add the L but granted the Grizz a W, on their home floor no less. I know that having the worst record is no guarantee that they'll win the Greg Oden sweepstakes, all I'm asking is that they do everything in their power to make it happen, if lose out during the lottery I won't blame them so long as they give their full effort. how good is Greg Oden? Even doc Rivers would have them competing for a title with Oden in the middle.

I saw a great article in ESPN.com about the old USFL, well really it was a mediocre article about a great topic. I loved the idea of the USFL and I find it hard to believe that a second football league in the spring couldn't work, I'd much rather be watching a second league starting the week after the Super Bowl and maybe finishing the last week in April. Have you ever seen some of the crap they put on TV during that time? Just show some games on saturday and sunday afternoons, the country loves real football, so much so in fact that people will watch that crappy indoor football just to get a little taste a small ten to twelve team league is all I'm asking for, just fill the rosters with guys who'd like to make the NFL but just don't quite make the cut, guys who'd love to prove themselves, don;t go out and sign college stars to ridiculous contracts, it isn;t worth an extra twenty million dollars to see Brady Quinn passing to Bam Childress, Rohan Davey would do just fine. Maybe I'm just not realizing how crappy the games would be, but I just want something decent to watch and I'v always been a big fan of the whole "where are they now?" thing that drives a second class league like that. So if you know any millionaires or billionaires looking for somewhere to throw their money, let me know.

I saw that the Royals spent big bucks on bringing in Gil Meche, which is a good thing I guess. I'm glad to see the Royals actually making a decent signing and throwing around some money, it just goes to show how much money is really floating around out there. But I can't help but think they're overpaying for a mediocre pitcher, maybe they would have been better off sitting back and watching all the other teams commit to bad contracts this opff-season and hope that there would be a market correction or teams that are looking to give these bad contracts away next season. Que sera, sera or mi casa es su casa or whatever the spanish would say here, now the cover of the Royals media guide can have Meche, Emil Brown and maybe a picture of Mike Sweeney in a cast or something.

That it for today.

-Bender Out

Continuing on

2006-12-06T11:01:00.000-08:00

I hope no one is too shaken by the news I had the unfortunate task to deliver earlier, but it had to be reported. Some other things going on, I was shocked to see Hollis Thomas was caught for steroid use. I've always been under the assumption that many players in the NFL use steroids but Thomas would've been a guy I never accused, and that is for one simple reason, from looking at him I would've called him the fattest most out of shape man in the NFL. I remember watching him celebrate a big play in the playoffs back in 2004 and just thinking that he really had let himself go. He goes about 6'1" and I'd have estimated his weight over 350 pounds. I don;t judge, I just say that it's a complete shock that he was juicing to achieve this look.

Some other disappointing news out there, not nearly as disappointing as the Jenna Jameson situation, but disappointing none the less. The Boston Red Sox have gone ahead and signed Julio Lugo, and I today am vowing to never once cheer him, no matter the situation. I just can;t get over the idea of the Red Sox paying 9 million dollars a year to a wife beater.

Announcing that signing has reminded of a complete misconception among fans that I wanted to clear up. Many fans think that teams raise ticket prices so that they can play their players, but this the exact opposite of the truth. Teams sign all these players so that they can raise the ticket prices. All free agent signings and player salaries in general are made so that the team can create higher demand for their product. Some people may say this is a small point but I feel like most people don't get this. Teams charge as much as they can get away with for everything that they sell, from tickets to concessions to liscensing. The only reason they pay anyone a lot of money is to improve their own brand marketability. So please realize that there is zero correlation between Manny's salary and how much your families day at the ballpark costs.

Onto lighter things, on my way into work I was thinking about how different Annie Potts' career would have been if she had posed for Playboy, I imagine she would've been a far more succesful actress if she had been willing to sexy it up a bit more. And I'm talking really sexy-ing it up not just that stupid seductive popcorn eating she did in the late 80s. On a related topic I think that my life would've also been very different had Belinda Carlisle posed for playboy back in her 80s heyday. I think she could've done for chubby women in the 80s, what Jennifer Lopez did for big asses in the late 90s. And I tend to think of Belinda Carlisle circa 1983 as one of the 10 sexiest women ever. I dare to say that we would've never had to endure the waif model era of the early 90s if Belinda had just shown her goodies.

I'd be remissif I didn;t mention the sad loss of Eden on Heroes, just when I was getting into her she had to try and save the world but at least she went out in a true heroic manner. sacrificing her own life for the good of humanity, anyway she will be missed.

And to finish on an up nnote, great news out of the Red soxcamp yesterday, Jon Lester's cancer treatment is finishing up and seems to have been a success, the cancer is in remission and he's set to try and comeback on the field, so that is great news for a young guy who has been through a ton in the last four months.

That's all for today.

-Bender Out