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?
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.
Alright, we all know most Liberals and the Left consider President Bush to be a radical Conservative, a real hard-line type. But now there is a recent development where you have hardcore Conservatives calling the president a Liberal, complaining about policies they feel are a betrayal of the Conservatives that voted him into office.
One of these two groups is dead wrong. Which one? Is Bush a moderate you might wonder.
Take immigration. The Left thinks he is a bigoted Conservative who wants to oppress the minorities. The newly-annoyed Right thinks he is a sellout to Liberals because he wants to explore the amnesty option and isn't doing enough to enforce strict border control.
Religion. The Left thinks he is a dangerous religious fanatic who wants to form government policy based on fundamentalist Christianity. The others think he is selling out his religious values and his religious base by, for example, allowing private stem cell research.
Economy. The Left thinks he is a "fat cat" type who wants to cater to the rich, while stepping on the throats of the poor. The others think his economic policy is a sellout to the Liberals, what with all the spending.
One of the most vehement Conservative public voices against the president is radio talk show host Michael Savage. Savage feels Bush is a Liberal and even goes so far to say he should be impeached (I think his reason was something to do with locking out certain Conservative Senators from some important meeting). He recently said that Bush is the worst president in U.S. history. He pointed to Bush 41 and Clinton doing the fund raising gig together as a sign that the Bushes aren't really Conservative.
What the frak? Oh I know, both sides are weirder than catshit and should go straight to Hell, 5th Ring, first Pit on the left.
Top Gear is a television show broadcast in England on BBC2. It features three men who drive and review cars, mainly high performance cars. They also inject a lot of humor into their shows. It is well produced and very funny.
Last year they filmed an episode, which just aired on February 9th, where they travel to America and drive from Florida to New Orleans. This could have been a great episode. The southerners love their cars and it would have been great to see the hosts interact with them on this shared interest.
Instead they chose to delibrately provoke and insult the people they encountered, and presented an entire show with the messsage that "America is a horrible place and the people who live there are the worst people on Earth". They always behaved in a condescending way toward everyone they encountered. They drove around with bumper stickers that read "Nascar Sucks", "Man love is OK", "I'm Bi", "Hillary for President". Now 3 of those are fine, but why provoke people with "Nascar Sucks"? Three British snobs putting down a popular sport right in the heart of the south is asking for trouble.
Their attitude right from the start was "we are so much better than these scum and we'll act accordingly". There was an incident at a gas station in Alabama where some guys were threatening them. Some say this was staged by the Top Gear producers--it could have been, I don't know. One of the hosts wrote a blog entry about it and did not allude to any fakery.
And of course a lot of Brits are posting on the Top Gear about how great it was, how "scary" Alabama is, how great it is to see the U.S. deservedly trashed, etc.
I guess I could go to London, drive around with a bumper sticker that says "Soccer is a trash sport" or "Formula 1 Sucks", act like a holier-than-thou jerk and get it on video. Then I could edit it to keep in all the angry Brits' reactions in and show it on American TV and call the people of England all kinds of fun names and talk about how awful they are.
Remember when you screwed around in your yard or your friend's yard, doing kid things like playing fort, setting paper airplanes on fire, maybe the odd cherry bomb here and there? Well, things have progressed since those olden times. Like making an explosive device powerful enough to blow up a backyard playset and killing someone in the process.
cincinnati.com
What is the psychology at work where we have changed the way we say the year? New Years resolution: saying "twenty oh eight" instead of "two thousand eight", as in "nineteen oh eight" instead of "one thousand nine hundred eight".
The Ohio State Buckeyes are preparing for the title game on Monday night (the end of which I'll surely miss because I'll be asleep--play the damn game on a Saturday afternoon for crissakes). They are in the exact opposite position this year as they were in last year. Last year they were annointed the champions prior to the game; this time they are a non-entity and are said to be not deserving of playing for the BCS championship. There are plenty of criticisms, and yes insults, directed at the OSU team for their lackluster schedule and perceived slow, lumbering nature (how did lumbering Michigan do against speedy SEC Florida?). And those criticisms are reaching the eyes and ears of the players, courtesy of a DVD given to them that contains clips of various pundits and others pontificating on why they are so bad.
USA Today
I think the underdog has won every BCS title game, save one. I think that's the case and if so perhaps it bodes well for the Buckeyes. One thing is for certain--if the Buckeyes lose this game, it will harm their reputation for a long, long time. In this case the answer to the question "Is it better to have gotten to the championship and lost, or not gotten there at all?" is clearly that they would have better off to have not gotten there.
Amazing, kids actually learn better and become smarter by DOING things. It seems this study finds that playing with blocks produces smarter children than playing classical music to them while they are in their crib or even in the womb.
Some dopes actually believe that if they put on Mozart it will somehow stimulate the infant's brainwaves and develop their brain better. Uh, sure. I guess this is similar to the old tall tale that if you play audio of some textbook under your pillow at night you'll "absorb" the knowledge right into your cerebellum. Knock it off people, achieve by doing, don't be like... teachers.
7:45am
The brand new Airbus A380--the largest passenger plane in the world--flew into Greater Cincinnati Airport today as part of a promotional tour. This is a French built plane (Airbus is a French company and a big rival to Boeing). The engines are manufactured by a joint venture between usual rivals General Electric and Pratt and Witney.
The GE engine plant is right here in Cincinnati and on its way to the airport it did a low altitude flyby over the GE plant, which is about 25 miles north of the airport and close to where I work. We could see the thing out the window of our office building. Eh, big deal, it's a frog plane, I'll take a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner anyday. A lot of people around the area phoned police about the low flying plane, thinking it was in trouble or a terrorist attack despite forewarning by Cincinnati authorities.
People in bank lines have no sense of people around them. In short, they suck. I was at the bank location inside the local Kroger by my home. The line starts in the middle as you approach the counter. It is roped off, with exits to the left and right. So I'm standing there, next up to go to the counter, 2 sets of people being helped in front of me. The first set finishes and instead of walking to the left or right, they walk towards me and push their way past with what little room there is. Then the second set finishes and they too turn around and wedge past me. It would never occur to me to do this when I'm done at the bank counter. I simply walk off to the right and don't bother the people waiting. What is the deal with the people? They're just oblivious I guess.
Phil did not make bad decisions yesterday on the 18th hole of the U.S. Open. If you pay attention to golf, you're probably hearing from the media about how he screwed up, it's back to the old reckless Phil, he should've hit the 4-wood on 18, and on and on. I can't wait to laugh tonight at the dopes on ATH and PTI rip him a new one for making poor shot making choices. Poor is the word alright, but it was poor shots, not poor decisions that caused the double bogey on 18 that lost the Open for Phil.
Phil said that the fairways were ridiculously firm and that he had hit perfect tee
shots that rolled off the fairway earlier in the round. In fact, a couple of these shots were struck with irons, not his driver. In light of this, he chose
the driver on 18 rather than the 4-wood (he did not have a 3-wood in his bag) with
the thinking being that a 4-wood in the rough would leave him with very long yardage.
Driver in the rough, he's much closer. I know, how about not driving in the rough?
Well, again, he said it was very difficult to keep it in the fairway even with a
decent tee shot.
And the second shot. We never saw the shot he had. NBC never showed the view from
behind him. It turns out it wasn't that difficult, he just needed a fade shot just
like the one he made on 17 to get a par. He hit a bad shot, bottom line, he admitted
as much.
Oh, and Jeff Ogilvy did NOT back into the win. He had a great chip-in at 17 and a difficult, pressure packed slightly downhill putt on 18. Had he made those shots behind Phil and Monty instead of in front of them, there would be no talk of backing into it.
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)
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".
A local black activist, Kabaka Oba, was shot outside Cincinnati city hall in broad daylight. This guy has been doing the "down with the man", "down with the PO-lice" thing for years. He has raised two sons--both are in prison. He calls himself a General. A General of what I do not know.
In the spring of.... 2001 I think....Cincinnati had riots for several days. The media portrayed the Cincinnati police as murderers, saying they killed 15 black men, and now things had reached a boiling point. That was a lie, in all but one instance the police were being fired upon by the suspect. Anyway, CBS called a local radio station yesterday asking "uh, hey, uh, you guys got any riots going on down there"?
Well CBS, the dude who shot him is black so they really can't blame whitey on this one. Then again, I'm sure they'll find a way. The cops had a covert plan to get these two mad at each then sat back and waited for one of them to shoot the other.
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.
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.
Well, there's one in every crowd. As you read the following, keep in mind that this guy is responsible for teaching kids.
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer opinion page, 31 October 2007.
Well, lookee at us...Cincinnati has made the bigtime. The Wall Street Journal published an article about a regional backyard game called Cornhole. It's in the same genus as Jarts, badmitton, etc.
WSJ
excerpt:
It is a fun game and goes well with beer. And it is a lot cheaper than golf.
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.
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.
Just got back from the Dentist where I was informed that I need to go back on 3 month visits in order to maintain my peridontal crap. That's when your gums recede. Fuck. Not that I care about going more often, but I will have to pay more due to more visits that the insurance will not cover.
Dentistry has to be the best gig out there. Everybody's got a set of teeth.
My friend Brad (a Pharmacist) has purposefully not gone to a dentist in many years. He insists he can take perfectly good care of his teeth himself. He rinses with Vodka, claiming it kills germs more effectively than the various mouthwashes available. I'm not kidding at all. I guess he's doing an ok job, I never known him to have any cavities.
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.
24 has been very good in previous seasons. This season it is terrible.
Lost has jumped the shark, really sometime last season.
Heroes jumped the shark on about episode two or three.
First, 24:
1. The writing this season is amateurish. The dialogue is horrible. It is filled with loads and loads of exposition. Maybe the show's producers have received complaints from viewers that are having difficulty following the storyline. Whatever the reason, the whole thing comes across as a show for 9 year olds.
2. Absurb, implausible goings-on. I'm not talking about Jack getting across LA freeways in 3 and a half minutes--the show has always had over the top storylines and that's OK. I'm talking about little things such as: Jack's brother being left alone with his father. There is no way Jack's brother would be left alone in a room with the IV still attached to his arm, let alone with another person present, even his own father. And the repetitive nature of the general plot is getting old. Same thing all over again. A couple hours and a new layer of the bad guy hierarchy is revealed; last hour's top bad guy is shown getting a cell phone call from yet another, different bad guy who is above him, and so on.
Second, Lost:
Lost is a....lost cause. It started to suck last year. The spiraling plots are just a bunch of tangents going nowhere. Nefarious plot tangents brought up last year have never been resolved. You can't do that to an audience.
Third, Heroes:
Never got going. Great potential, jumped the shark right out of the gate. The cheerleader's father sucks and is a lousy character. The chick with the evil twin sucks--horrible storyline, horrible character. Everytime the bitch comes on, either one of them, the show grinds to a halt. Same with the cheerleader. Fucking awful character, the shows grinds to a halt every second she is on screen. Getting through each fucking episode is like wading through molasses. The dumbasses writing the show have no idea how to keep the audience interested. Just because you through in a twist 58 minutes into the show means nothing.
