Hard Times in Minnesota

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

Catching up again

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bender Out

Entertain Me!

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