Just watched PTI with the two hosts commenting on a controversy surrounding NBC's Dateline and NASCAR. Dateline wanted to investigate anti-Muslim sentiments in the country, based on a Washington Post/ABC News poll showing increased bigotry in America. Naturally they chose a NASCAR event to find the bigotry. NASCAR fans are largely from the South, people with southern accents are bigots, ergo, there will be plenty of bigots at a NASCAR event. The Dateline crew had Muslim looking men walking around at the race at Martinsville, Va. No one bothered them, there were no racial incidents.
Wilbon was cool with what Dateline did, saying "NBC is trying to create news where news does exist".
Oh, so Wilbon is indicting the NASCAR fans as bigots, with no proof.
Neither one of the hosts mentioned that nothing happened to the two Muslim looking men.
That didn't stop Wilbon from saying: "if there is something untoward happening towards these gentlemen, that they said at a racetrack, then why is it happening"?
A lot of the time I like and agree with what Wilbon says. Then he pulls one of these and confirms to me that he has serious problems with race in this country.
Two of our finest men, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., were kidnapped and murdered in Iraq by truly evil people. The Leftists wackos started no thread at TSM about it.
They sure layed it on thick over Abu Gahrib and Gitmo though. Page after page of condemnation and insults at the American soldiers, military leaders, you name it. I'm sure Menchaca and Tucker would have gladly endured dog collars, fake electrical wires, and being stripped naked. I wonder how many times times the word "torture" was used by the Leftist scum in those pages.
Ah, but they have nothing to say about Menchaca and Tucker.
I used to start a thread each year honoring our military on Memorial day. I wouldn't bother anymore, what's the point. None of the vaunted Liberals had anything to say in those threads about the military then or now. And they didn't start any threads on their own. But they support the troops don't you know.
Heck, the insurgents are just defending their homeland that we invaded, right? They are the good guys fighting the occupying American military.
Nothing to say about Menchaca and Tucker? Wow.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was on a morning sports talk show in Cincinnati (2 Angry Guys) this morning, pimping his "reality league" web site or whatever it is. Shortly thereafter, he was injured in a motorcycle accident. Thank you for coming on a Cincinnati radio show, Ben, I for one am glad you did.
Speaking of the 2 Angry Guys, they got into hot water a couple weeks ago for putting out the idea that Griffey Jr. should be open to changing positions in order to reduce wear and tear on his body. Their opinions angered Jr and even got a mention on the ESPN show "Around the Horn". Jr made the comment that they hadn't played the game at this level, so they should shut up. And the talking heads on ATH said athletes shouldn't listen to the morons on talk radio.
Now former Reds star center fielder Eric Davis has echoed the view of the angry guys.
I wonder what Jr's comments will be now?
So I'm in a stall in the men's room at work and some guy comes in and takes the stall right next to me. There are open stalls farther down but he takes the one right next to me and let's loose, making all kinds of noises. What the hell, what kind of sick freak intentionally sits right next to some guy in the men's room? And don't give me this crap about he didn't know someone was in the stall. The doors in our men's room hang open. It's easy to tell if they are occupied.
And I'm a guy who was forced to take a crap in a room full of open toilets with oh, about 25 other guys. That's right no stalls. It was circa 1984, Fort Benning, Georgia, U.S. Army Airborne School. Yeah, that was fun. And noboby could come up with a funny line to break the uneasyness in the room. So we just took our crap and got outta there.
And now a special announcement to help you save money. If you have a Pep Boys auto parts store in your area, they have Purolator oil filters on sale for 49 cents, after a mail-in rebate. They also have Pennzoil Full Synthetic on sale for $1.99 a qt, also after rebate. To demonstrate how cool that is, consider that Mobil 1 Full Synthetic is $5.50 a qt. That's awesome and come on, it's not that big a deal to change your own oil.
We all know the manly men that play Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey are true athletes, but what of other sports?
Tell me if the participants of the much maligned sports below are real athletes or not.
Pro Tennis player
PGA Tour Golfer
Race car driver (including NASCAR, Formula 1, Indy)
Pro Soccer player (MLS, English Premier League, etc.)
Pro Beach Volleyball
X Games (including skateboading, snowboarding, bikes on ramps)
Jay Leno has 15 vintage Vincent motorcycles. This goes against my usual attitude (if you're wealthy buy whatever you want, be conspicuous I don't care) but in this case I think that's bullsh*t. Those bikes are too rare for him to hoard 15 of them. Take 2 and move on Jay. Let some other wealthy people have one. The Vincent bikes are classics made from 1924 to 1955 in England and are rare and highly prized. The Black Shadow and the Black Lightning are two famous models. They probably became famous in America for being the fastest production bikes of the time and also Hunter S Thompson wrote about them. Currently there is a Vincent "Black Shadow" on sale on Ebay for $45,000.
Which leads me to my next topic....
Whatever happened to the "Dude yer gettin a Dell" guy? He must be somewhere.
The Bengals suck. Why they suck is not known by people outside of Cincinnati. Bengals owner Mike Brown's first priority is not winning. He doesn't particularly care if they win or not. He doesn't do what's necessary to field a winning team. All NFL teams are of course a business and they wish to make money, but at the same time they care about winning. Not Mike Brown. The Bengals are just as capable as any other team of acquiring high quality NFL talent. This isn't high school folks, this isn't a case of "well, their school is bigger than ours and they have better players than we do." The Bengals could have acquired the same difference makers that have helped the Colts, the Patriots, etc. to become winning teams. A typical NFL team will have 10 to 20 scouts. The Bengals have 1 person designated as a scout and 3 assistant scouts. Their marketing department has 18 management people and of course more beneath them.
A few years back, Mike Brown threatened the city with taking his team away from Cincinnati if they did not give him a stadium, i.e. have the people of Cincinnati pay for it. We should have told him fine by us and have a nice day. But people gave in, in part from efforts by a "citizen" who was all over the media citing the advantages of having an NFL team in the city. (There are advantages but of course the people also want a winner.) This guy, after the whole thing was over and the deal was done, was found to be on the Bengals payroll. Brown got his stadium and a whole lot more. He is guaranteed a sellout by the city. If people get pissed and stop showing up to the games, it matters not to Brown. He still gets 100% sellout money from the city. In addition, he doesn't pay utilities for the stadium. The city pays all utilities. Nice.
The Bengals bring nothing but ridicule and embarrassment to the city and it's all on Mike Brown. May the cancer fairy visit the bastard and rid us of him for good...oh wait, his daughter, Katie Blackburn, will take over the team when he croaks. This city is screwed.
Well the baby arrived 4 weeks early. Oh, it's real fun dealing with an unexpected newborn in the house and trying to arrange 50,000 different things. My wife had a C-section, which went well. Her labor wasn't progressing so the doc took the easy way out. My wife's uncle by sheer coincidence was visiting the U.S. He lives in China and he said about 75% of all births in China are done by C-section. Well, you've got to assembly line things when you're dealing with however many billion people are in that lovely Communist dictatorship. That's all for now...your life becomes a series of 15 minute breaks to do what you want when you've got a newborn around.
Oh, yeah you guessed the arrival part of the entry subject. But what does the departure mean? That would be my life departing as I knew it.
And the white zone thing is from "Airplane".
The Union of European Football Associations Champions League is the Major Leagues, the NFL of Soccer. They are having their championship, their Super Bowl this month...ON A WEDNESDAY. Man, that is bitchin. Nice going, Europe. The most important sporting event of the year is taking place on a wednesday. Now, NASCAR stupidly blows their load by having their Super Bowl as the first race of the season, but at least they have the sense to do it on the weekend. But I might have to tune in because one of the players has the same name as my Dad, with 1 extra letter (Stephen Gerrard, plays for Liverpool).
I cleaned the throttle body (TB) and combustion chamber on my car. It's probably never been done and doing so will improve gas mileage. It's pretty easy but I think it will need another cleaning. Anyway, I nearly screwed up my engine in the process, which could have cost me thousands of dollars. I purchased the appropriate cleaning agent at the dealer--never use generic cleaner that is not specific to combustion chambers. Then all you have to do is disconnect the air cleaner hose leading to the TB, this exposes the opening of the TB, and this is where you spray the cleaner into. Now, on my car there are two holes within the TB that you must plug up. I had no plugs that fit (or any other kind of plugs--who has plugs like this lying around??), so I used tape. Well, after you spray the cleaner in you need to run the engine in order to get it fully into the system. Thinking I might spray some more after the first go-round, I left the tape on. Well, this monumental stupidity nearly got the tape sucked into the engine. And once it's in there the only way to get it out is to tear down the engine. You only get so many of these "mulligans" in life and I hate using one up like that.
1:57 pm:
How long will it be before some secular Lefty mouths off on this? Over the next few days, we are going to hear how he is no doubt in Hell right now, something along the lines of "Well, he's probably turning a crispy brown right about now." Oh well, maybe Keanu Reeves can rescue him.
2:32 pm:
Bob Barker is retiring from The Price is Right. Barker is the man. He has been staple of American television for decades. I always loved how he would very subtley get frustrated and testy with the particularly dumb contestants. And he was nailing the hot presenter-babes while in his 60s.
ABC is rolling out a new "Ten Commandments" tonight. While listening to the various promos I always bust out laughing whenever Moses talks, not to mention just the audacity of remaking a DeMille classic is really treading on thin ice. The reason I laugh is the ridiculous upper crust Amero-British accent that Moses is sporting. Now, Hollywood has always given the ancient Romans British accents. Fine, whatever. The Romans need to come across as Imperial, the ruling elite, etc. and nothing says elite like a good British accent. But here we're talking ancient Egypt. Hebrews and Egyptians for crissakes. An ancient Hebrew with a British accent?
All I can think of when I hear this guy's accent is Joan Collins in Dynasty. It's not really a pure British accent, more like a pretenious American blue blood trying to sound British.
We have a local sports morning show here in Cincy featuring 2 guys who call themselves the "2 Angry Guys". They are former sports writers and are pretty cool to listen to. The show is entertaining. Recently they talked about Ken Griffey Jr. and the topic of him moving to another position, perhaps left field or 1st base, in order to reduce wear and tear on his body, which, let's face it, has been an issue lately. This topic was brought up because a few weeks ago Jr was asked about moving positions and he fired back to the reporter "Are you going to change YOUR job"? Hmmm, just a little bit of a childish response Jr.
Now this week Griffey is responding to the 2 angry guys, apparently upset about their comments. Now, they may have gotten a bit out of hand with a few of their comments, such as saying that the guy who had replaced him in center field earlier this year was doing better. But that was a flippant comment. Their main point was that they wanted him in the line-up and felt that moving him out of center field would help prevent injury and ultimately be better for the team. That's reasonable and in no way were they trying to rip on him or call him a lousy fielder. Come on Jr., I guess living next to Tiger Woods in Tampa has rubbed off on you, what with Tiger's notortious smug responses to media questions about his game.
The "LOST" season finale aired last night. I watched it in wonderful High Definition, but the experience was slightly marred by a local weather storm warning scroll at the top of the screen that went on for the entire 2 hours. Thanks for that, you local weather dickheads.
As for the show itself, it exceeded my expectations of mediocrity. It was pretty darn good. Much better than the famous "X Files" full disclosure episode that was neither full nor disclosed anything. The explanation of what really caused the plane to crash in the first place was revealed. More background on Desmond and the hatch was revealed. The only thing that was frustrating was the "Hostiles" or "Others". Nothing much was revealed about them. The dude that they had captured said "We're the good guys" and that they were "going home". Yeah. OK, whatever. But all in all satisfying.
One of Europe's most legendary and respected metal bands, Gamma Ray, has tour dates this spring and summer in the United States. When heavy metal got wiped out by the grunge wave of the 90s, Europe was the only place to find metal. And wow, was it ever metal. It could be argued that much of it was better than what we had here in the U.S. One of the best was Gamma Ray, a German band renowned for the technical precision of their music. Fast, furious, and exquisite. Whaddaya expect, they're German aren't they?
They are going to be in Massachussetts, New York, Virginia, and Los Angeles this year.
The only bad thing is that their latest release, "Majestic", contains some strong anti-American lyrics. One of the songs alludes to the War on Terror and how we (Bush) has unleashed his evil on the world, etc. So I won't be making the trip and spending money on their concerts. Yes, I already bought the CD. Now I wish I had downloaded it for free.
Here are the lyrics:
Oppression deadly reign
Madmen gone insane
They hate and bring us pain
Bloodlust in their eyes
Getting high on torture cries
They hate and terrorize
They sacrifice
They try to break my will
They claim the right to kill
My world is standing still
I`m lost in hell
They try to make me right
A prisioner no reason why
All I try is to survive
The world`s demise
Chained in darkness - Screaming for the light!
Killing pain to save my life
[Chorus]
Condemned to hell - I`m facing the end of my days
Condemned to hell - Their torches are burning
Condemned to hell - My freedom will burn at the stake
Condemned to hell - The dark age returning
They don`t care, they close their eyes
Kick away our human rights
A world dehumanized
Now tell me... how many gave their lives?
How many have to die?
Killed by official lies
With stars and stripes
Pain and anger - Killing all the light!
Darkness comes... eternal night
[Chorus]
Condemned to hell - I`m facing the end of my days
Condemned to hell - Their torches are burning
Condemned to hell - My freedom will burn at the stake
Condemned to hell - The dark age returning
Chained in darkness - Screaming for the light!
Killing pain to save my life
[Chorus]
Condemned to hell - I`m facing the end of my days
Condemned to hell - Their torches are burning
Condemned to hell - My freedom will burn at the stake
Condemned to hell - The dark age returning
Condemned to hell
Condemned
[Repeat 3 times]
Hell! Hell!
Ohio, which demonstrated its lowly state of existence a year ago by passing a smoking ban, now has topped itself. Legislation has passed that bans touching at strip joints and has mandated that patrons must be six feet away from the dancers at all times, a so-called "6 foot bubble" that must be maintained around the dancers. No more dollars in g-strings, no more leaning in for a close look in Ohio. God, we suck. At least these chicks are fighting back.
Vincent Bugliosi, famous for prosecuting nutjob Charlie Manson, has written a magnum opus, 1600 pages worth, refuting the JFK conspiracy nuts. Not that we really needed this, but there are still numbnuts out there that think along the lines of an Oliver Stone. 3 quick points:
1. Despite people's claims, the act of getting off 3 shots from Oswald's location in a certain amount of time is not impossible and has in fact been duplicated over the years. Out of those duplications, 2 shooters have bested Oswald's results (2 or more head shots as opposed to Oswald's 1).
2. The magic bullet nonsense is actually on the part of the conspiracy nuts. When they talk about a magic bullet, it is because they have misrepresented where Connelly was sitting in relation to the president. Yep, it's that simple. The bullet travelled as it should based on where Connelly was really sitting. If the conspiracy nuts are right, the bullet would have ended up stuck in the car somewhere, because they say it would have had to make a right turn, etc. in order to hit Connelly. There was no bullet found elsewhere, and they can't explain where it ended up.
3. Kennedy's head did in fact move forward (as can be seen in a frame shot from the Zapruder film) before it moved backward, just as it should. For a brief microsecond, his head moved forward, then snapped backward, just as physics allow.
There's nothing wrong with confidence and blowing your own horn every once in a while. In my May 31st entry, titled "The return of Phil Hendrie" I predicted that his new show would be commentary based and not a rehash of his old character-based comedy show.
This article from yesterday, June 4th, covers Hendrie's return to radio later this month.
My prediction from last week:
I'll be checking out his show and will probably have to do so on the net. The show is airing 1am-4am EST. Looks like he is trying to move in on George Norry territory, sans the aliens.
I don't get the buildup to the Patriots/Giants game. In order to equal the 1972 Dolphins they will have to win the Super Bowl. Until they get to the Super Bowl, I'm not interested. And besides, aren't the Giants already in the playoffs, which means they'll probably be resting players at some point and/or not playing all out to avoid injury?
My Xmas haul: 3 CDs, Mission Impossible Season 3, Lightscribe DVD+R discs, Quesadilla maker, Gamestop giftcard, a papoose type baby carrier, automatic adjustable wrench, ceiling light fixture for our kitchen (which I get to install) and some cash.
Following up on my Bengals post, there was a Q&A with none other than Mike Brown in today's Cincinnati Enquirer. This is perhaps the most comical example of front office football buffoonery ever recorded.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in the previous post that the Bengals do NOT have an official GM. When he took over the team as president in 1992, Mikey was basically the GM/President. When asked during this Q&A if he would hire a GM, he said no, we currently have a 3-headed GM consisting of himself, his daughter Katie Blackburn, and his son-in-law Troy Blackburn (Katie's husband).
Here are some choice samples:
What's served for lunch? Right you tight-ass, gotta check the prices on the vegetable tray.
King Kong, rabbits...my head is spinning.
Jesus, now elephants too?
You're not sure who Hines Ward is? It's kind of important seeing how Pittsburgh is in your division.
Awwwwwww, he's glum.
Finally a decent horror moive...from 27 years ago. After the crap movies I saw for Halloween, I finally saw a decent one this weekend. "The Burning" is a classic summer camp slasher from 1980. In a word, awesome. I love the free-wheeling, PC-free attitude of those times. Kids at summer camp swearing, smoking, running around with beebee guns shooting at people. In other things that would get you expelled and sent to a social worker these days. The story involves a mean summer camp caretaker who is horribly burned in a prank gone bad. Of course he exacts his revenge with hedge clippers. Fuckin A.
During NBC's laughable green segment during the SNF halftime show, Matt Lauer referred to Al Gore as one of the "best minds" on Climate Change. Best minds? What exactly is his science degree in?
So the purpose of the segment is turns off the lights in the studio for the halftime show to demonstate being green. I'm not kidding. They had candles on the desk. Yet their generators were certainly still going, the giant plasma screen was on behind Costas' head, all the power necessary to video link to Lauer on the other side of the world was not shut down. This had to be an SNL skit, right?
We got our email notice about a Holiday Party at work today to take place December 14th. That's right, Holiday Party, not Christmas Party. Earlier this month we received an email about the Thanksgiving Luncheon that will take place November 14th. Ah PC split personality, I love it. Why is it OK to willy nilly use the word "Thanksgiving", and yet "Christmas" must NOT be used. Everyone knows it is because of Christmas that we have this party, but we must not name it so.
Eli Roth, director of "Cabin Fever", and "Hostel", was on with Neil Cavuto talking about the recent popularity of horror movies. He says it is a reaction to the terror that people see on TV in these times and they need a place to vent. He said horror movies were on the decline during the Clinton years because it was a period of calm. He said that anger over Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and the fact that "the government did nothing" in the aftermath of Katrina is causing people to want to vent and scream during a horror movie. Uh, yeah right.
The host was taken aback by these comments, and brought up Psycho and asked Roth whether that had anything to do with a reaction to the Kennedy administration. Roth said no, it was merely a reaction to [1950s serial killer] Ed Gein. He's right, but I guess he momentarily forgot about his theory of Clinton/Bush. He later said horror movies declined in the late 80s because they had become a joke, lots of sequels, nothing new. I guess he forgot that it was because of the calm of the Clinton administration.
Roth has always seemed like an intelligent guy to me in the interviews I've seen. Check that, he is smart, that is obvious when you listen to him. But he lives in a very insular, provincial-minded world that leads to the nonsense of his comments on Cavuto's show.
Two Duke lacrosse players have been arrested and will face rape charges. Sorry, don't have a clue, I thought lacrosse was a new car model by Buick.
Rome was just talking about LeBron James and how he demonstrated that he is no Michael Jordan by passing the end-of-the-game last second shot off to a teammate instead of taking the shot himself. Rome is a complete ass. How can someone who purports to have a deep knowledge of sports make such an idiotic comment? Has he never heard of John Paxton and Steve Kerr? Jordan in fact passed off a last second shot not once, but twice, to the aforementioned players, during the post-season.
Oh, update, 12:20--now he's mentioning Paxton and Kerr, someone must have clued him in...starting to backtrack slightly...but he's still sticking to his take! Ah, he's "in that situation, he has to take the shot". Um, Jordan did so "in that situation" you dumbass. He's stuck, he made his signature 'take' and now he can't back off it. Hilarious. Yeah, better move on to the O.J. suit story.
Speaking of sports talk show hosts, they really are all a bunch of extremely jealous wanna-bees. Guys who played in high school and could never make it to college or the pros. So they end up talking about it instead of doing it.
And most of them (not all by any means) no very little about breaking down sports and being knowledgeable about which team or player is better, etc. The PTI guys are a prime example--they know nothing about sports. Now, I don't either, but I can tell when someone else doesn't. Yesterday they said if the Pistons shut down LeBron James, they win, guaranteed. Well, they nearly lost and James had 4 points total I think, no more than 6 for sure. The Cavs were winning at one point by 10 or 12, with James at that point below 4 points.
Some recent cases in Ohio demonstrating how f'd up we are.
Case #1
A man's home is invaded by two robbers. One of the robbers stabs the man's son. The man has a gun in the house and shoots one of the robbers. Police arrive and while performing their investigation see a small bag of pot out in the open in his house. It also happens that the man disdains banks and keeps his savings in a safe in his house. Police seize every penny of his savings under the authority of a law that is intended to seize the profits of drug dealers. Eventually the city where the man resides takes his money...all of it, permanently. They take the money because they demand that he produce receipts, checks, etc. for the money and he doesn't have it. So they assume it's drug money. The guy is guilty until he proves that he's innocent. Bassackwards, sounds to me.
Case #2
Columbus Dispatch
Columbus, Ohio has an odd law that allows women to sunbathe topless in city parks. The police have begun an operation whereby they have an undercover policewoman hanging out at a park topless. This is done to catch perverts, etc. In one case a firefighter (the man had driven by the park on several occasions and seen her) went over to sit with her. I believe he went on his own volition but I'm not sure. This guy was a normal citizen by all accounts, was not suspected of any "perverted behavior" at the park. So he sits down and she begins to come on to him, eventually asking him to unzip and show her his wang, wanger, john thomas, you choose the term. I repeat, she asked him, he was not the one who offered to "pull it out". He then "pulled it out" and immediately several cops came rushing out of the bushes nearby to arrest him for indecent exposure. Way to go boys, you just saved the citizens from a real criminal there. Nice job. The judge was not swayed by defense claims of entrapment and found the guy guilty. What the hell, Columbus. Knock this crap off. Get your lady cop skanks to put a f**kin shirt on and leave men alone.
Having no choice of cable provider sucks. My cable company in Cincinnati, Time Warner, has a standard tier of programs and then a few digital tiers. The digital tiers promise a better picture and more channel choices. One of the big selling points for the satellite providers is that ALL of their channels are digital. I received a letter last summer from Time Warner that stated that they were going to make all of their channels digital, in an effort to keep up with satellite. Well, I never heard another thing about it for months and decided to ask them about it. The response I got was a vague statement that all of the channels are digital. Huh? There has been no difference in the picture quality of the standard tier channels. Also, if all the channels are digital then why do they have a separate digital tier? God, I want to move to satellite, but I don't want to have to deal with outages due to weather.
Borders and Waldenbooks are not going to allow the latest issue of Free Inquiry on their shelves. The secular humanist magazine is publishing the cartoons of Muhammed that have angered Muslims around the world. No word yet on whether Barnes & Noble will do same. Something tells me Borders carrys plenty of Mapplethorpe books. Actually, I'll have to cut Borders some slack. Their stated reason for not carrying the mag is the safety and security of their employees. That's reasonable and understandable, as opposed to not wanting to offend anyone.
NYU did not allow a student group to show the cartoons as part of a discussion centering around the controversy. Academic freedom? Nah, none here. We all know the reason why they had blank easels instead of the cartoons. They don't want to offend Muslims on campus, who spoke out about them. However, there is no doubt they would show the famous piece of art with the crucifix in urine if that subject were discussed--and they should, as they should show the cartoons. But they don't worry about or fear Christians.
Whatever happened to the word "doesn't"? Nobody says this word anymore. These days, it's all about "dudn't". I hear professional broadcasters on the radio say "dudn't" all the time. Even the freakin president has used it, although in his case it is not that shocking when you hear his other syntaxtical malformations. Is the word "dudn't" a reflection of our need to speed everything up? It seems "dudn't" is a quicker way to say "doesn't". Also, some people avoid "doesn't" because it sounds pretentious, like you're some jackass trying to sound educated.
"Hey, do you believe this idiot on TV, look at him"!
"Dudn't bother me."
Barry Bonds hit home run No. 715, surpassing the legendary Babe Ruth. Don't care, I'm more interested in the fan who caught the now famous ball. He was standing in line for some peanuts and a beer while Bonds came up to bat and the ball pretty much just fell into his hand. I LOVE this. The dude doesn't even stay in his seat to see the at-bat and winds up with I guess a ball that is worth a few hundred grand. I happened to see Hank Aaron hit No. 714 in Cincinnati. My aunt was in the lady's room. And I might just have to start liking Bonds after he made the comment that he hopes the guy sells the ball and makes as much money as he can get.
And now, a brand new segment on Triple Black. The weekly Top Gear car review!!
I mentioned the British TV show Top Gear in a previous post. It's a great show, very well produced. The only thing I don't like about it is the insessant America-bashing. I mean these guys go way out of their way to rip on the USA. Yet I still watch, because when it comes to cars, the hosts and I are on the same page.
So without further ado, here is the car review, plus a bonus review in celebration of the first segment ever.
1) 2006 Corvette Z06
This is the high performance version of the normal Corvette. Jeremy Clarkson did the review and like with all things American, in a real shocker, he didn't like it. Oh, he admitted it was very fast, but he objected to the cheap interior and the little bugs that went wrong. He also said it would be horrible as a daily driver because it was so uncomfortable. Now, if you can afford the $70,000 price tag, I'm sure you can mix in a Camry to drive to work. But, that's Clarkson for you. And of course the interior doesn't have the high quality of a Ferrari or Aston Martin--it's 10s of thousands of dollars LESS than those 6-figure cars. He did however express astonishment over a car that is the equal (in terms of speed) of a $160,000 Ferrari can be bought for Chevrolet's price. So basically he loved it as a track car but did not recommend it for driving on the road.
2) 2007 Jaguar XK
Clarkson tested this completely redesigned model as well, and loved it...as long as one kept the car under 130 mph. He noticed a significant front end lift and lightness in the steering at speeds over 130. Not safe at all. This is due to the poorly designed rear spoiler, which causes too much downforce at the rear of the car, with no compensation at the front. He also criticized the antenna (looks like it came from a 1981 Ford) the lack of a new engine (same engine as the old model) and the lack of any new gadgets in the interior. He did however love the styling, and it is a truly gorgeous car. At one point he said he was torn on whether to drive it or to get an easel and start painting it. And while he bitched about the interior gadgetry, he did like the restyling of it, felt it was modern and crisp, all the old school wood trimming gone. Bottom line, he loved driving it and could put up with the nitpicking.
I have never been among those sports fans in America that hate soccer. I don't hate soccer, I'll probably even watch some of the World Cup this summer. Sports talk radio in the U.S. absolutely HATES soccer and I don't really know why they are so worked up about it. But I will say that these smug World Cup commercials are really getting on my nerves.
The first one talks about Liberia and how, due to the fact that they have a World Cup team, there is now a cease-fire and there's no more violence, blah, blah. Great, and what happens the minute the World Cup is over for them?
The second one is even more googly-eyed about the World Cup's (more specifically the ball itself, according to the commercial) importance. It talks about people coming together all over the world, putting aside differences, even stopping wars. Hey, is Iran or North Korea fielding a team this time around?
Now, I said I don't hate soccer, but one of the first things that comes to mind when the topic of soccer is brought up is that violence that occurs at soccer matches in Europe. The so-called "hooligans" and whatnot. Beatings, fires, tramplings, all that good stuff. It might get a country's people on the same page for a short time, but they're still going to hate the other country and that country's team. Some head-shaved hooligan is going to chuck a molotov cocktail at some poor bastard...all because of a ball.
Classic Heavy Metal band Iron Maiden's Steve Harris has a daughter who is embarking on a singing career. No story here, just an excuse to check out a smokin hot babe.
May is Heavy Metal month on VH1. I keep missing programming because there is VH1 and VH1 classic. And I never know which channel the Metal shows are going to be on (I've seen some on both channels) and I keep forgetting what channel VH1 classic is. Dammit, VH1, just put all the Metal programming on one f'ing channel.
I did see some of the "Heavy: The Story of Metal" last night. Part of it featured Dee Snider (lead singer of Twisted Sister) battling Congress over explicit lyrics labels. Snider talked about the "Conservative oppression" of the 1980s. He didn't mention that Tipper Gore was the wife of a Democrat. I guess she was being "controlled" by Conservatives, perhaps an early iteration of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. At one point in the hearings he was being questioned by Al Gore.
Oddly, later they showed him performing at a campaign rally in California for Arnold.
And when it comes to Metallica, I'm afraid I'm going to have to fall on the side of them being a sell-out. Ian Scott of Anthrax says he would fight anyone who says they're a sell-out. Well, let's take a look at this. When Metallica was starting out, their whole philosophy was "Fuck the Hair Metal/Glam Metal", we're just going to play hardcore thrash and we don't care how we look, etc. Then in the 90s, there they are, at the Grammys, Kirk Hammet wearing makeup, earrings, and a jive-ass burgundy sport jacket. Whatever you want to call it, they made a conscious decision to change the music and jump into the mainstream pop culture pool.
So I'm reading the next to last book in the Harry Potter series. Why I'm not sure, maybe it's just the massive pull of something that is a cultural phenomenon. I want to read the final book and I might as well read the book that leads up to it. It hasn't gotten up to a good start. I'm already annoyed with it. There's a line in the opening chapter about the Prime Minister of England meeting with the U.S. president. The president is referred to as a "wretched person". Great, and I have some 700 pages to go.
Well, Michelle Wie did not qualify for the U.S. Open. Now, I was all for Wie being able to attempt to qualify, but some of the commentators and sports journalists (ESPN of course) who agree with me are just pathetic. They are on Wie's side only because of political correctness. I just look at it as just another person who may have the ability to compete on the PGA tour. Watching the live cut ins on ESPN was a hoot--when it became clear she wasn't going to make it, the comments by the dumbass PC commentators were truly pathetic. One nitwit sportscaster on ESPN (don't know his name, he's a regular) kept saying "What went wrong, how come she fell back". The woman who was at the golf course was trying to explain how in the world this could've happened. Uh, maybe because she's a 16-year old girl with little experience on a PGA course under these pressure circumstances. Even the experienced men had trouble dealing with the pressure, etc. Steve Fleisch, who at one point was leading the Memorial tournament last week (one of the biggest and most prestigious events on the tour) failed to make it. Everyone was acting as though it was a disaster, it was as if Dwayne Wade just went 0-20 in the first half of the NBA final.
