Ramblings

Is this Really a Sport?
Over the last couple of weeks, we've been subjected to a competitive eating coverage on ESPN. I finally decided that this morning was the last straw, when people like Dick Vitale starting throwing in their two cents. At first I thought the whole bit was tongue in cheek, but they never really made it clear if the whole piece was supposed to be funny. At any rate, why is this crap even on Sportscenter to begin with? Even if it's on ESPN, it's not a sport. I've actually heard these guys referred to as "athletes" before. Are you kidding me? Have you actually SEEN a picture of Badlands Booker, or some of these other clowns. If you're over 400 lbs and not playing in the NFL, then you're not an athlete. I don't care what your talent is. Same thing goes for Poker.

Anyway, apparently Takeru Kobiyashi is not going to appear in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest on the 4th of July, paving the way for Joey Chestnut (more on this in a second) to take the title this year. Apparently Kobiyashi has a sore jaw and won't be able to compete. Basically Kobiyashi kills everyone in this contest every year. He's like the Babe Ruth of competitive eating.

Joey Chestnut cracks me up on a number of levels. First of all, his name is Joey freaking Chestnut. Isn't this name already taken by someone in the adult film industry? Wouldn't Ron Jeremy have been more successful if his name was Joey Chestnut? Also, I saw JC put down a ton of hot dogs last year, and he nearly beat Kobiyashi. You should see the way he eats. His whole body rocks back and forth, much like Leo Mazzone, formerly the pitching coach of the Atlanta Braves. But I digress. I can't devote any more time to this. But you can bet on my watching this contest on the 4th of July. I'm a loser.

I'm a Little Kid
NCAA Football 2008 comes out in a few weeks, and I am totally geeked. I look forward to the release of this game every year. I even have a $30 Target gift card burning a hole in my pocket for this. I figure it's ok for me to drop $30 on a game I don't need, but $60 is just too much. This year's list of enhancements includes a better frame rate, enhanced dynasty mode, and an all new player motivation system. Basically if you have a leader type guy on the team, he can influence the play of his teammates. They have (thankfully) ditched the momentum system that was used last year. Having team momentum led to one team getting annihilated every time. You could run for 6-7 yards a pop right down the field with no problem. I hated it. I feel like I'm 12 for writing a paragraph on this. I think I just need to move on.

My TV Recommendation
Since summer TV sucks (well, until Big Brother comes back July 5th) I have been basically been stuck without anything to watch recently. I have to recommend The Shield. You should definitely watch the episodes in order, so head down to Blockbuster and pick it up immediately. The show features Vic Mackey, played by the guy who used to be the Commish. He's the leader of a police force strike team in the Los Angeles district of Farmington. The strike team is specifically assigned to combat the gang violence that is overrunning Farmington. Vic basically bends the law to suit his needs, and is constantly going behind his boss's back to get results on the streets. It's a great show, with an enthusiastic "thumbs up" from me. I would recommend catching up on this over the summer. Or watching Hell's Kitchen.

NBA Draft
This is on Thursday night on ESPN. Everyone is talking about how deep the draft is this year, and I guess I agree with that assessment, but let's face it. Everyone KNOWS the players that are in the draft this year. Would you have cared about Greg Oden and Kevin Durant if they had skipped college and headed straight into the draft? No. The age limit is the greatest thing David Stern has ever done for the NBA, because it's also improving the collegiate game at the same time. Even if you want to argue that there's no point for a guy like Oden to stick around for a year of college, for every Oden, there are probably 5 guys who would try to jump straight to the league and end up flopping, a la Sebastian Telfair. What's so bad about forcing someone to play at the collegiate level anyway? Their game gets refined there, and they also have the experience of being in college, which was probably the most fun I ever had in my entire life. And they get to go for free anyway, so it's not like they're really out of any money. If they're concerned about getting injured, take out an insurance policy. Isn't that what LeBron did?

In Bauer We Trust

MAKE IT RAIN!!!

I have to talk about this now, OK? Enough is enough! I am really tired of PacMan Jones showing up on my TV for ANOTHER run-in with the law. What is wrong with this guy??? How can you not stay out of "altercations" at the titty bar? I don't understand it...

The guy has been in the league now for about 3 years and he has already been arrested/indicted/questioned/named as a "party of interest" 16 times. Yes, that is right - SIXTEEN! One - Six, the number after fifteen... I can't understand it. There is no possible excuse. Somebody needs to tell him and Vick that it's OK to stay home. It's OK to leave the hood rats in the hood. It's OK to let the hood rats come over and play PlayStation. They are scared to death to lose their street cred, and maybe have to get normal friends. I wouldn't care what those douche bags thought of me. The only reason an entourage hangs around anyway is for a shot at driving the Bentley or a chance to stick their hands in your pocket.

Instead they are fighting dogs, involved in shootings at strip joints and other ghetto - related chicanery. The funniest part to me is that they have the balls to complain that they're being picked on because of their celebrity status. Ridiculous. Once again, if you plant your butt at home or a nice restaurant instead of a juice bar, problem solved. I think that repeat offenders should be banned for life. Period. If you are arrested more than 2 times during your career - you're done. If you are convicted one time of a felony of any kind - sianara. Why is this not OK? Why shouldn't we expect men who make ungodly amounts of money to play a game for our enjoyment to use a particle of common sense? They build themselves $20 million mansions, then can't stay home to watch their 100 inch TV's.

I am really at a loss on this one. I can't think of anything else to say. I think the immortal Jim Carey said it best in his film Liar, Liar - STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE! Oh well, it's a pipe dream to expect these guys to behave. You can take the boy out of the hood...

Am I a Pompous Ass?

Earlier in the week, I was trying to figure out what I wanted for father's day, since it's my first. Anyway, I was trying to find something in the $40 range, that way I'm not shortchanging myself, but I'm not spending an arm and a leg either. I talked myself into a bluetooth headset for my cell phone, only to see an article in the KC Star the very next day basically labeling anyone with the audacity to wear one of those things in public as a pompous ass.

So I started to have second thoughts. Did I really want to turn into "that guy"? Honestly, my intentions are good. My new phone is almost impossible to hold when it's charging, which is a real pain because 99% of the time, I charge it in the car. Having a hands-free headset eliminates this hassle. Also, not having to hold my phone frees me up to do other dangerous things in my car, like dig through my glove compartment for missing CD's, adjust my mirrors and yell at the hippies at 63rd and Ward Parkway every Tuesday evening.

Besides, these things are cutting edge, right? Everybody used to hate computers, and now the only people I know who function without them are my grandparents. Maybe bluetooth headsets are the wave of the future.

Anyway, tonight I finally gave in and purchased one. You can see it here: http://http://www.amazon.com/Plantronics-510-Bluetooth-Multipoint-Technology/dp/B0009B0IX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0404031-4866436?ie=UTF8&s=wireless&qid=1181873063&sr=8-1

What do you guys think? Am I just wasting my time with this? I don't think this will generate as much discussion as Josh's Tim Duncan diatribe.

Tim Duncan, the G.O.A.T.???

I was reading the Bill Simmons chat yesterday and came upon a quote saying that Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward of all time... What? Does anyone else think that Bill was jumping the gun a bit? Granted, Duncan is a great player and one of the best big men in the game today, but of all time? I just can't agree with this for the following reasons:

1) Is Duncan really a power forward? He's a 7 footer that plays either position depending on match-ups and/or injuries. Many times he's on the roster as forward, but matched-up with the other team's center. I saw a lot of Mavericks games this year and not once when they played the Spurs was Duncan matched up with Dirk. I would argue that Duncan's more of a center than a power forward for this reason. Then the argument ends because he's not even the best center in the league today.

2) OK, for arguments sake, let's call Duncan a forward. Even then, you cannot convince me that Duncan is a better player than Charles Barkley. Barkley was a force in the league and led both the Sixers and the Suns to the championship series with no help (sorry to all the Hornacek fans out there). He was great offensively and defensively and had the ability to intimidate his opponents. Duncan is a well rounded player, but far from intimidating. Another better forward was Kevin McHale. He did have a lot of help (Parrish and Bird), but he was a defensive and rebounding presence who was still deadly from 15 feet. Thirdly, everyone forgets about Maurice Lucas from the Blazers. He was overshadowed by Bill Walton's personality, but he also was an intimidator that averaged 15 points and 8 boards over a 14 year career.

3) What about Kevin Garnett??? Garnet is an amazing player that is stuck in Minnesota with no supporting cast and a GM that refuses to help him (sorry McHale, great player, terrible GM). If you flip-flop those players for those teams, Garnett would be the one with all the rings and we'd be having this discussion about him. Garnett is more athletic and has better range than Duncan, too. I don't know, am I missing something?

4) OK Brent, I gotta bring it up - Duncan has turned into a whiny little girl! Maybe Ginobili is rubbing off on him, but he bitches constantly. I just don't think that the greatest forward of all time would need to piss and moan after every whistle. He loses a lot of credibility with me for this reason. In this the sissified version of the NBA, he fits right in, but I'm pretty sure that Laimbeer would have knocked him out in the early '90's for crying so much.

Tim Duncan is a good player and a good person, from what I hear. But I think crowning him the greatest is over the top. There are a lot of great players out there that played in the hay-day era of the NBA that can be, or possibly should be, ranked higher. Obviously, I'm always up for debate on this...

Sidebar - Simmons also said that Robert Horry can be considered for the Hall of Fame. WHAT??? Yes he has 7 rings (after they beat Cleveland), but his career averages are 7 points and 4 rebounds per game. If this happens, they should burn the HOF down. That's like giving me a Super Bowl ring because I watched the Patriots win 3 of them on TV. Ridiculous.

I will not go quietly into the night!!

Let me tell you a little story. This will just go to show you how ridiculous this world has become. I'll be very general in case a certain reader is still reading this blog.
A couple of months ago, I got into some trouble for some comments I made at work. They were in jest and everyone knew this......well, almost everyone. So this all went to the Corporate machine. Long story short, HR was here the following week doing a campfire while we all held hands and sang Kumbaya.
Wait, it gets way better. This corporate HR lady comes up to me later and wants to search my vehicle because it has been reported that I was packing heat on company property. I know, I was livid. I told her I know she had ZERO rights, by law, to search my vehicle, and furthermore, that it is legal in this state for me to carry, even without a permit. She went on to tell me that the law stopped when I crossed company property. BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! Anyway, she didn't find anything, I still have a job, and I've lost even MORE faith in people as a whole. She then wanted to know about the extremeist website that I was posting on! I know, I couldn't believe it! Extremeist?! Man I've been pretty mellow, I thought. She said she heard that I said in my blog that I had a piece in the car, that part of the reason she had to search it. What a crock! I'm telling you, this world is nothing but a giant powderpuff game.
Needless to say, my spirits were a bit rattled, but not broken. After much thought, I have decided to continue in my blogging, but I will have to make some changes. I guess there are certain subjects in which my passion flows deep that I may have to steer clear of for now. As for TV, celebrity, and sports items? Still fair game!
I will do the best I can to continue in our endeavor to bring the world joy by the power of the blog! I have a dream!......That we can all.......oh forget it, lighten up A-holes!

Weekend at the Movies

I'll keep this brief, but I saw two movies over the weekend. I was really excited to see The Good Shepherd, and not so excited to see Night at the Museum. Before I get too far into this, I'm revising my scoring system. From now on, every movie is going to get a "thumbs up" a "thumbs down" or a "whatever" rating. I think it's pretty self explanatory.

First up was Night at the Museum. Am I the only one to notice that Ben Stiller can only play one role in a movie? He's usually a bumbling kind of guy who deadpans some funny stuff at various points throughout the movie. Of course, he deviates from this sometimes, like with Dodgeball, but for the most part, his role here is the same that we saw in Meet the Parents. Anyway, he's playing the role of a divorced, down on his luck, out of work dude who ends up netting a job as a night-shift security guard at a museum.

Anyway, at night time, the musuem exhibits come to life, and there are quite a few laugh out loud moments to be found. I personally enjoyed Owen Wilson as the miniature cowboy who feuds with the miniature Roman exhibit that is nearby. Attilla the Hun was pretty entertaining too. All in all, it's a funny movie that the entire family can enjoy. A very solid "thumbs up."

Unfortunately, The Good Shepherd was quite a letdown. I was stoked to see this movie. It has all the things I like...CIA, Robert DeNiro, Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon (ok, that might be a stretch, but he's done some good movies). Yet, at almost three hours in running time, it wasn't exciting enough to warrant the time investment. The main problem I had is that Matt Damon's character was so boring. I guess they were trying to play him off as the super-spy that hides all his feelings or whatever, but they overdid it. Even the twists at the end of the movie weren't worth the time it took to get that far.

If you're going to make a 3 hour movie, there better be a lot of twists and turns along the way, or at least some explosions or boobs. There was nothing like that going on here. It ended up feeling like they didn't know where they wanted to go with the storyline. It starts up with the bungled Bay of Pigs invasion, then they flashback to Matt Damon's college years, some work with the FBI, which gets him invited into the CIA. Then he's doing WW2 work, then spying on the Russians...just too much going on. You almost lose sight of what you need to concentrate on, and by the end of it, you just want it to end. An extremely disappointing "thumbs down" for The Good Shepherd.

In Bauer We Trust

I'm Sick and Tired

Normally I rant about TV, but I'm going to touch on two particularly annoying sports subjects that I am repeatedly subjected to, but have never cared about.

I am a religious watcher of Pardon The Interruption, with Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. I know, I know, Kornheiser isn't very good on Monday Night Football, and he's basically a blowhard, but bear with me. He's actually pretty decent on PTI. Anyway, there are two subjects that come up on this show all the time, and on SportsCenter. Here they are.

Michelle Wie - If you're not familiar with her, she's some women's golf phenom, who has actually received a couple of sponsor exemptions to play in a couple of PGA events in addition to the LPGA tour. To make a long story short, Michelle has never won anything, and she's a women's golfer, so why are we constantly hearing about her? Who cares about women's golf anyway? It's not a sexist thing to say. Ask a guy if they watch women's golf. Ask a woman if they watch women's golf. Nobody watches it, nobody cares. Wie can't even win an event on the woman's tour, so why is she even bothering with lingering in some of the men's events? I can't figure it out either. It's almost like the female equivalent of Tiger Woods, only if Tiger Woods would have flamed out immediately.

Danica Patrick - Danica is in pretty much the same boat as Wie. She's famous for being a woman in a man's sport. And before we get too in-depth with this, let's not forget that IRL is like the 4th most popular form of racing in America, behind NASCAR, roller derby, and lawn mowers. Nobody cares about the IRL. But at least they have one big event, the Indy 500. All we hear about heading into the Indy 500 is Danica Patrick related. Never mind the fact that she's never won a single race. Then she shoves some guy after the race was over last week, and now they're making it into some kind of feud. Sportscenter actually showed a comparison of the two racers (this guy's name escapes me at the moment, and I don't care enough about this subject to actually look it up), and this guy led more laps of the Indy 500 this year than Danica has ever led in her life.

What I'm trying to get at here is that we see an awful lot of women's coverage, when the majority of the people watching this programming (men) don't care, so why do you bother shoving this down our throats? Can't we just forget about Danica Patrick and Michelle Wie? I'd rather have an extra 15 minutes of NBA finals or MLB coverage.

I can't take it anymore!

In Bauer We Trust

PS: This season of 24 sucked, with the exception of a few episodes. You guys HAVE to go out and buy Season 1 at Target. It's less than $20, and there's nothing on TV during the summer anyway (well, until Big Brother starts).

We're Back Baby!!!

After a far-too-long hiatus, I have decided to restart the GRS blog (please, hold your applause until the end of the post). With new babies, a new city and many other lame excuses, I, and my cohorts, allowed the blog to fall into obscurity. But now, it is revived and, once again, a living breathing spectacle of knowledge and wit. With that being said, I have a few items to touch on to get the ball rolling again.

Moving back to KC: I'm coming back to the land of empty arenas and sub-standard professional sports! I'm pretty excited about being back up there, but Texas was a pretty cool place to be for a while. The people down here are pretty cool, but the overuse of the word "y'all" has become nauseating. When it is used multiple times in emails, it's just too much.

Sheff's racism rant: This is what really made me want to blog again. Gary Sheffield has about as much right to talk about racism as Oprah. He says that black player numbers are diminishing because latin players are more controllable. What a load of crap! Numbers are diminishing because black kids don't play baseball, period. I wonder when Freddy Adu is going to pipe up about the lack of blacks in soccer. When will Steve Nash complain about the white minority in basketball? Ridiculous.

Also, I hate to break this to Sheff, but ALL professional athletes are controllable. Owners have them under contract and are able to cut them or trade them on a whim. In return, they pay them (yes, you too Sheff) ungodly amounts of money to play a game. I'll make that trade any day.

NBA Finals: Brent and I agree that it was a good thing when Cleveland beat Detroit. Another Pistons - Spurs series would have been utterly unwatchable. It's hard enough to watch Bowens' groin shots and Ginobili's flops, but throw in Rasheed Wallace - train wreck. I have a really hard time watching the Spurs anymore because of the constant bitching and flopping. As Bill Simmons said, it's starting to look like a European soccer match. I think Stern is going to talk to the refs and tell them to crack down on the acting so Bowen will foul out and Ginobili will get technicals just for acting like a 3-year-old girl (yeah I know, fat chance). But, since I'm living in that dream world now, I'm calling the Cavs in 6. Bron Bron will take control and have a Jordan-esque series. Shock the world, baby!!!!!!

The Chiefs off-season: I am really disappointed with what they did in the draft. Getting 2 D-tackles back-to-back when they need offensive linemen is inexcusable. They did finally deal Green and got something for him (5th rounder), which I think is a good thing. He's a fragile head-case that will be a liability. Now, watch him throw for 4,000 yards and start in the pro bowl. Whatever.

Well, that's all I have for now. I'm giddy about getting the blog started again. Our style is impetuous, our defense is impregnable, and, just like King James, we're going for "global icon" status.