MarvinisaLunatic

Donnie Darko is great because it requires some actual thought by the viewer, otherwise its one of the more confusing movies ever even if you watch it 2 or 3 times.

I think its because most of the big names now are hispanic/latino or even foreign, not Americans...and this isnt a "wheres the white guy in boxing" comment either..

Shame they dont cancel ONS3 since theres no reason to have it if its not going to be an ECW only show.

No, Kotz wrote some good stuff regarding NASCAR and the American auto industry. Marvin, not so much. How can you say so many positive things about NASCAR? Yikes. I happen to like NASCAR, Ive been watching it almost as long as I have been watching baseball and football. this is sorta why I avoid talking about it at all on here, but I have before when its been brought up. Though it never fails to lead into "ITS NOT A SPORT" and redneck comments.

Thats where Im sitting, although its not where I want to sit. Birthday present..bleh. Is $50-100 that bad? Dover has 2 races a year. Isn't it more outrageous that Baseball teams can charge $50 a ticket for seats to 1 game out of 81? The people who go to the races can obviously afford it if they can afford their 500ft long RVs with satellite TV and have a bbq out in the lot for everyone too. As far as the new rules, the NASCAR rules people are damned either way. Tony Stewart cries "OMG NASCAR IS LIKE WWF!" when they start calling cautions for "questionable" debris, and yet I remember hearing passing comments from former drivers like DW and the like about how they'd adamently claim to NASCAR officials that there was debris on the track to get a caution so they wouldnt go a lap down or so they wouldnt have to risk a green flag pit stop. The first time NASCAR doesn't call a caution for debris and theres a wreck and someone gets hurt..GEE..Im guessing whoever got hurt will be bitching about that too. NASCAR's stance on safety over entertainment might not be the most popular, but you can't blame them for it. If LT goes out for the Chargers and gets killed on the field, Im sure NFL would make sweeping changes to rules and equipment to avoid it happening again. Same for every other sport. and.. its MOTORSPORTS..deal with it.

A) The season is only 36 Races (26 Pre-Chase races and 10 Chase for the Cup Races) and 1 All Star Race that doesnt count. The season is a bit long, but it was like 32 races a couple years ago so its not much longer than it was. I dont think they'll be adding any more races without taking races away from tracks with 2 races. Interestingly enough I worry Dover will be on the chopping block for one of their 2 races despite being a driver favorite track. B) Its pretty much known that the cars represented in NASCAR (Dodge Charger/Avenger, Chevy Monte Carlo/Impala SS, Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry) have nothing in common with the street cars. The whole new COT thing is rediculous too, with adding the wing on the back and the splinter on the front and making the car look like a box on wheels (which is what the cars looked like when I first started watching back in 94). But its all apart of driver safety so I suppose you have to accept it as a fan since no one wants drivers to be killed in races. C) I dont get why anyone has a problem with the advertising. Advertising is a fact of life, get over it. For the record, its been proven that fans of a particular driver are brand loyal to their driver's sponsor(s). But I follow Jeff Gordon and Ive never bought one Dupont Automotive Finishes product in my life and I'll drink Coke or Pepsi depending on which is cheaper, so I dont know how well that stands up. D) "America can't take any more NASCAR, and the saturation point passed very early on in all this, back in the late 90s. Ratings are on the decline, and attendance is following suit." Tell me why they are clammoring to build more tracks because fans in certain areas of the country have to travel far to see the races. I know theres talk of a track up in the Northwest which is actually a racing hotbed, and also talk about a track in the NYC area. TV ratings are down, but the Race in Texas a couple of weeks ago won the sunday ratings and NASCAR still brings in higher ratings for TV than any sport other than Football, and Im sure they beat out the NBA playoff ratings on Sunday. A lot of people are turned off by Fox's presentation which might factor into that, and in July the coverage spins over to TNT and then to ABC. And maybe attendence is declining, but they can still sell 150,000+ seats for a race so..I doubt thats a big deal, its not like the stands are empty for races on Sunday, which is what led to tracks losing races (Rockingham, North Wilkesboro). Hardcore fans hate the fact that the newer homoginized tracks like Texas leeched races off the old school tracks like Rockingham, but that was inevitable as long as the owners of the old school tracks allowed them to be run into the ground and not kept modern. E) NASCAR has a Mexican off-shoot? WOW..its not like the NFL has one in Europe, MLB has deals with Japan. They've run Busch Series races in Mexico for the last couple of years and the crowds down there are huge compared to what the Busch Series sees on Saturdays here in the States. F) Kotz assumes that everyone that cares about Auto racing gives a shit about the car companies behind it. Im sure most of the diehards do, but Ive been watching for 14 years and I couldnt care less about the car companies behind the scenes or the fact that American automakers are floundering around like a fish out of water. They have no one to blame but themselves for allowing Toyota and other foreign car makers to come in and, god forbid, make cheaper cars with better features that American car buyers actually want...OMG thats just terrible business practice..whatever. Toyota being allowed into NASCAR was a huge problem for the old school fans, but it has been proven so far that they can put all the money in the world into NASCAR but they cant just come in and dominate nascar by throwing tons of money at development programs. Plus it doesnt help that all the drivers they hired suck ass. G) Kotz doesn't even mention the #1 problem that most fans actually do have with NASCAR these days..the fact that you have owners of huge multi car teams that seem to dominate every sunday over the smaller single car teams. Roush/Fenway (5 Cars), Hendrick Motorsports (4 cars), Richard Childress Racing (3 cars), Joe Gibbs Racing (3 cars), DEI (3 cars), Chip Ganassi Racing (3 cars), Ginn Racing (3 cars), Ray Evernham/Dodge Racing (3 cars), Penske Racing (2 cars) Petty Enterprise (2 cars) and Robert Yates Racing (2 cars). From a financial standpoint, its almost impossible for a single car team to compete in NASCAR right now unless they cut deals with other teams, especially given the process of qualifying cars is based on owner points..its pretty hard for a single car team to even qualify a car for a race on Sunday. Theres been talks of trimming the number of cars one team can run and that will help some. The COT is supposed to cut costs for building cars as well, but in the long run only the large teams can afford to build enough of them to run them and risk wrecking them. Which is why Hendrick Motorsports has dominated the COT races thusfar.

I Dont quite get that..

Tony Stewart would have you believe that..but its not that bad. I would assume that everyone would love it to be the ruleless lawless days of old when it was racin but it cant be like that anymore.

Im doing the self imposed exile from Os games for a week.

I bet they have wine tasting at the track in wine country up in Sonoma Valley California. Its a Road Course too, so theres right hand turns! SHOCK! Im going to the June race in Dover, and Im sitting in the air conditioned grandstand. There are Redneck fans at any track just because there are rednecks with nothing better to do than to travel all over the country in their gas guzzling RVs following the races...

Ive been watching NASCAR since 1994, the first race I watched was the very first Brickyard 400 won by Jeff Gordon. Jeff Gordon has NEVER been a popular driver with the hardcore fans from the south for many reasons, including the way he looks/talks (as Jeff Foxworthy put it, he "enunciates") and the fact that he was one of the first drivers from somewhere other than the south to do well (from California). He had a huge rivalry with Sr., but they never really made it a public issue of their relationship/good friends/business partners off the track. I dont think that would have made difference in what happened this weekend though. The prior week in Phoenix, I dont think he should have done the victory lap waving the #3 flag when he tied Sr's win total. Had he done that at Taladega, somebody would have probably tried to kill him. They threw beer cans at him a couple years ago when he beat Jr in a controversial finish..so you just knew if he won on Sunday it would happen again. Sr fans embraced his son, and Ive been saying for a couple years now that if Jr wasn't Sr's son I dont think he'd be driving a car right now, as he's pretty much been riding his fathers legacy for the last 3 years or so. Personally, I think its only going to get worse..Hes inevitably going to tie Sr's (and Richard Petty's) 7 championships (hes got 4 now, hasn't won won in 5 years) and if he manages 8 that will piss off a lot of the old school people. He'll never touch Richard Petty's 200 wins ever, but he has a good shot at being #2 if he races another 10 years or so. The Jeff Gordon hate hasn't been there at all over the last few years, but this year its escalated to as high as it was back in the late 90's when he was winning everything like he is now. NASCAR had been about parity with about 12-15 drivers that could win any given race but it seems this year as if its about 6 or so.

Im going on a self imposed no Orioles protest for a week. The team is just god awful in every respect right now and its not even funny. Im not even gonna look at the scores online or the paper, no Orioles Hangout..Id dump Tejada/Bedard from my fantasy roster if I could. I gotta find a new hat to wear for a week and a new keychain. Im gonna delete MASN from my directv guide and the recordings upcoming on my Tivo. We'll see how this works. They're 11-14 now, with 6 games to play I say they're 12-19 by the time I come back..

RVD vs Vince is sorta like punishment for him not resigning I guess. That should have been given a few more minutes. plus, I hate it whenever whoever takes the 5 star has to reposition themselves and cant do it subtly.

RVD has him beat for that. He didnt have all 3.

They all want to beat the crap out of vince. Hatred for Vince > ties to original ECW

Kahli is gonna come in and win. Hes gonna go for the Triple crown and probably kick the crap out of Taker so he can be the first RAW/SD/ECW Champion simultaneously and stuff. ignore the fact that its Vince hed be beating..

I totally think the punchline is that they get fired up to wrestle, start for a few minutes and then Vince fires em all.

Break up the originals too while you're at it.. swell

WTF?

yeah.. well..

The Vampire talks!

Aparently Estrada spoiled the surprise that Vince is already there.

Baez is absolutely terrible.. The Os at least are making an effort at a comeback in the 9th..but it wont happen.

SURPRISE! 2 run HR To monroe and its 3-2 Tigers

Great. Five fantasy guys injured now, and only two DL spots. quitcherbitchin I have 2 on the DL, but I'll drop nook logan if I have to and I just picked up Ryan Doumit as a C even though hes playing RF or something for the Pirates. and Durbin looked like crap compared to his last start vs Chicago.