BruiserKC

We've got one in our garage, but mostly only because we've also got every other tool and hardware known to man. Except for a chainsaw. Always wanted a chainsaw, dammit. As for the TV-14 bashing, it's actually just Vince going back to his old argument. Before the Attitude era, the WWF in outside interviews would constantly knock NWA/WCW for being overly violent and adult. This even went so far as to criticize things which weren't violent and adult but just claimed to be, like the first Uncensored ppv. But apparently it was OK for Vince when he had Kaientai try to choppy-choppy Val Venis' pee-pee, give us Katie Vick and watch HHH perform a necrophiliac's wet dream, or Mae Young giving birth to a hand. If Vince does it it's creative, apparently.

MSNBC's obsession with everything Fox News irritates me. The other night I'm channel-flipping between the game and Keith Olbermann...everytime I watched him he happened to be ripping on FNC commentators or having clips from Fox News and tearing them apart. Olbermann is a joke as a commentator, he needs to stick with sports.

Great promo by Orton at the end of the show. To be honest though I would have liked it much more the night after WM with Orton holding the title belt. Especially the part of the IED being a sham. I really hope they put Orton over and give him a run, I've never been a big fan of his but he is RED hot right now.

Great season so far. I'm very interested to see how Olivia fits into all of this somehow. Is she really out to help her mom or does she have her own hidden agenda.

I think right now Russia is in huge trouble financially because of the drop in oil prices. Ideally they thrive on oil prices sitting at about $60-80 a barrel, and right now with oil way below that they are hurting. This can make them someone to watch, I think it's more an issue of money.

As a Bears fan...there is no way in hell I want T.O. anywhere near Soldier Field in the blue and orange. Owens has some great stats but he always seemed to strike me as a player who didn't come through when it really counted as much as one should to be considered a great receiver. What comes to mind was in '01 when the Bears beat the Niners in OT. Mike Brown basically tears the ball right out of Owens' arms and took it in for the winning TD. Besides, both Angelo's and Lovie's jobs are pretty much on the line this season and that would be the wrong gamble to take.

If they want to keep the Texas feel of this WM, I want to see them induct Barry Windham this year and have either IRS or Daddy Blackjack introduce him.

It strikes me though that all sports push their stars. Even in football they make a big deal out of the stars...such as if it's Adrian Peterson and the Vikings doing battle with Eli Manning and the Giants. It strikes me as something they did ever since free agency was introduced to sports, where a player now spending his whole career with a team is the exception now.

The Democrats don't have to own anything. Republicans were in charge of the war when that went bad, so they got blamed. Republicans were in charge of economic policy when the economy went bad, so they got blamed. If things don't get better, the Democrats just need to claim "things are worse than we thought, we need more time to undo all the damage the Republicans did." They don't have to own anything, but the voters have entrusted the Democrats to fix the problems. Like one journalist noted, "Obama voted against the war, but he's inheriting the responsibility to end it." It's not about owning anything, it's about whose responsibility it is to fix it. And if things don't improve, we will reach the point where no one will want to hear about how it's the Republicans' fault. The way things are right now, Obama pretty much has enough votes in Congress and enough political capital right now to get things done. Blaming the Reps might work for a little while, but in the long run we need to see progress or things will get ugly.

Pete Carroll in the 2006 Rose Bowl. On the 4th-and-2 that Texas stopped LenDale White on to eventually get the winning TD and the national championship, your Heisman winner for that year Reggie Bush is on the sidelines and not in the game. On what would be the biggest play of your season, how the hell do you not have him in the game. Either in the backfield or as a slotback/receiver, his presence would have changed things dramatically.

I know in the past when teams have been in trouble, they end up moving. But I have to wonder have we reached the point where eventually at least one or more teams actually go belly-up and go out of existence? I know quite a few NHL teams are in trouble, including the Phoenix Coyotes. Also, NASCAR's Nationwide Series have had a few races move, not to mention losing a lot of sponsors. Arena Football's done for 2009, and might be done for good. And I know they are fringe sports but when we now look at the NBA having teams in trouble, plus the NFL making some cuts in the front office, we might be seeing this recession really start to hurt the big sports.

Curt Smith..."Voices of The Game"- great book talking about the legendary voices that were part of baseball's lore. W.P. Kinsella..."Iowa Baseball Confederacy"...nice piece of fiction from the man that gave us "Field of Dreams".

Is this as Pistol Pez or Shaska Whatley?

You have to find Norvell Austin and "Iceman" King Parsons places on that list. Austin, especially...as he was a trend-setter in wrestling for the South. When he teamed with Sputnik Monroe in the '70s, it marked the first time black wrestlers were heels in the South and teaming with white wrestlers. He would also be an original member of the Midnight Express as well. Parsons was one of the best mic workers back in his time as well...his "roody poot" phrase was copied later by the Rock. And of course Parsons had the most electrifying move in sports entertainment in the BUTT BUTT.

The rumors of the death of this board are greatly exaggerated.

For Tom Clancy...I have recently really gotten into his non-fiction work. I enjoyed reading, "Every Man A Tiger-Inside the Gulf Air War Campaign" with former USAF General Chuck Horner. Also John Feinstein's, " The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever" is a good read.

Another American icon takes a hit...courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Hershey’s Reading plant closing today By Christopher K. Hepp INQUIRER STAFF WRITER The Hershey Co. closed its Reading plant today, shutting down production lines that for 23 years have produced such storied sweets as York Peppermint Patties and 5th Avenue Bars. The production lines at the plant are being moved to Monterey, Mexico, and other facilities in the United States as part of a restructuring of Hershey's, the nation's largest candy manufacturer. About 300 jobs are being lost at the Reading plant. A total of about 1,500 jobs are being eliminated company wide. According to Dennis Bomberger, business manager of Chocolate Workers Local 464, workers had received a severance package that included two weeks of pay for each year of service, up to 65 weeks. Along with the loss of jobs comes the closing of a small chapter of Pennsylvania's candied past. York Peppermint Patties were first manufactured by the York Cone Co. of York, Pa., in 1940. They stood apart from competitors in that they featured a soft, dark chocolate shell around a soft peppermint center. Similar candies at time featured hard shells. Fifth Avenue Bars were created by William H. Luden, a Dutch immigrant who in 1879, at age 20, started a candy "factory" in the kitchen of his family's Reading home. He went on to develop a cough remedy, Luden's Menthol Cough Drops. Company shares were down 60 cents (1.71 percent) to $34.43 in early-afternoon trading.

Any time the announcer said "That's it, this match is over!", it's not. It goes...1...2...2 9/10...kickout. Refer to above rule especially in a title match when the announcer says we're going to have a new champion and makes a huge deal out of it.

After the strike of 1994 cancelling the World Series, it took me three years to come back to baseball and it was the home-run chase between McGwire and Sosa that did it. I enjoyed watching the home runs, I won't lie there. But as a baseball fan I truly enjoy watching regular folks play. Most baseball players you can't tell from other people walking down the street. Some things a couple of people said recently interested me. Marvin Miller, the founder of the players union, said he would never have agreed to drug-testing. Well, Marv, you're a clueless idiot who obviously can't see the steroid era has tarnished the game. Even the clean ones are looked at with suspicion because Fehr refused to cooperate. In fact, Fehr willingly allowed this to happen. Jesse Ventura recently said that if Vince McMahon was indicted for allowing steroids to run wild on his watch, why is Bud Selig not being indicted? Selig turned a blind eye to what was going on and didn't care (sorry, Bud, I know you hate hearing that but it's the truth). Selig was so worried about his legacy, yet screwed things up so bad he's going down in history as the worst commissioner ever. If they want to clean things up...you simply have to have both Selig and Fehr resign (or forced out) and I would want to see them both indicted in their allowing steroid trafficking in baseball. Then we go back to the days of having a commissioner who was more interested in the good of the game than pandering to the rich owners and rich players.

What's up old friend? This very well might happen, meaning Orton goes over HHH at least. HHH, to be fair to him, is expected to be the go-to guy who does the smart thing for the business when a guy is hot and put him over properly, and Orton is literally firing on all cylanders right now. However, the problem is that HHH (as well as Cena) basically put him over at last year's Mania soooo.....well, you know..... Just chilling, keeping capitalism alive. Orton is huge now, if they were smart they'd put the belt on him at WM. However, we all know Vince doesn't always do the smart thing.

I would really like to see, for once, Orton go over on HHH at WM. I think it would be great to see that happen, it would be something different and really put over Orton as the ultimate heel. Then, at the end of the match you can have him either punt The Game or Stephanie. Then you have Legacy and Orton run roughshod all over RAW for a few months until at least Summerslam. It'd have that Horsemen-like feel from back in the day, even to the time when Evolution ran the show on RAW.

Howard's foul-line dunk just wasn't the same as when Dr. J and Jordan did it. When you put theirs in slo-mo it definitely looked like they were flying. Howard's was OK, but didn't do much for me. I was more impressed with his first dunk in the finals when he clearly screwed up where he wanted to put the ball but still brought the fans to their feet. I do agree that Fernandez' 2nd dunk would have scored higher if Gasol gotten the pass to him the first or 2nd time.

I know I mentioned this over in one of the other threads regarding the DTV Delay Act, but financial concerns have quite a few TV stations across the country saying they're going to go through with the digital transition and end analog broadcasting on Feb. 17 anyway. Here where I live our Fox, CBS, and NBC affiliates have already said they're going forward. Apparently they're saying the expense of running both digital and analog transmitters is too much. XM/Sirius might be filing bankruptcy as well, the merger hasn't done them much good from the sounds of thing and they're still hemorraging money. As for my earlier comment on Obama having one chance...the way the media built him up and made him out to be the Second Coming, he won't get a second chance really. Plus, the way our society has become, we want results now and everyone is pretty much wanting the quick fix. In reality, if everyone is trying to compare this to the Great Depression (which it's not), we're pretty much around 1930 at this point. The decisions made here can right the ship or send the economy sliding further downward. If Obama's plan does nothing, the same people that put him on a pedestal will start tearing him down.

I figured something like this would happen, as far as the position Obama is in now. The way the media and people have built him up, he has one chance to hit this sucker out of the park. If this plan doesn't work, the same ones that have cheered him relentlessly will start to tear him down.

Something tells me that this whole thing will spell of fuzzy math part Deux. Let's say this package is designed to create 3 million new jobs. And instead the package ends up taking away 2 million jobs. People will say if it wasn't for this package that we would have lost 5 million. Plus, when you have an unapologetic liberal in Jim Cramer claiming he can see no silver lining with this whole thing, something tells me we'll be going through this again in 6 months to a year. Especially when it doesn't deal with one of the biggest reasons for the slowdown of the economy, which is the housing market going in the toilet and foreclosures skyrocketing.