Are You Kidding Me Fox?

I was planning to blog about the Major League Debut of Phil Hughes today, but I felt the strong need to blog about Drive (and punch someone in the face) when I read today about its cancellation.

I think it is completely ridiculous that Fox decided to cancel Drive after just four episodes! Four episodes! How in the world can a series possibly gain viewers if it is only given the opportunity to air four episodes! The character plot lines are barely developed. The story is barely told!

In its first season, Seinfeld didn’t have a huge following. I’m not comparing Drive to a historic show like Seinfeld, but I am just plain pissed off now and can’t think of anything else to say.

In the 2-hour season premiere the show was viewed by 6 million people and since then according to media reports they have suffered some “leakage” of audience, losing a half million to a million viewers after each successive episode. I’d like to take a leak on Rupert Murdoch’s head. ….

Too many shows these days are not given a chance to find an audience. Take for instance shows that I have mentioned on this blog before like The Wire and numerous others. They are wonderful shows that you really have to delve further into to enjoy. I think the Drive had that cult following potential and wasn’t given any opportunity to succeed by Fox.

Damn you corporate America!

American Idol Gives Back

I stand corrected...yesterday's good news/bad news wasn't involving the Yankees and watching American Idol. Yesterday's good news was that during our viewing of American Idol Gives Back my wife and I gave a little bit of money to help people who are much less fortunate than us. The bad news is that there are millions of people across the globe -- including in U.S. - who are living in horrible conditions. It really makes you thankful for what you have. And that's why we decided to give a little back last night.

As I've cited before, I think American Idol and Fox do everything in their power to drag out shows so they can sell every inch of their property to advertisers in the favor of making a buck. Last night though, I think it was completely wonderful that they used their platform as the most popular show in America to highlight the stories of people who dearly need help. While I really believe that throwing money at the problem isn't the solution and requires larger action by the governments of these countries, I am really impressed that American Idol took it upon themselves to highlight this issue.

Hopefully last night's show helped raise some of the questions that need to be asked about why there's such a wide berth between rich people and poor people across the globe.

Good News, Bad News...

The good news is that the Yankees game against the Blue Jays was rained out tonight, meaning that the Yankees bullpen didn't get a chance to blow another game as they have in multiple recent games. The bad news is that as a result instead of watching the Yankees, I am stuck watching American Idol Gives Back with the wife. Help me....help me!

Phil Hughes makes his first major league start tomorrow night against the Blue Jays. I've got to admit that after hearing about tonight's rainout that I was hoping that Hughes first start would be pushed back to Friday against the Red Sox and blow their doors off. That sure would have added a new chapter to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow. If I survive American Idol giving back. ...

A-Rod Keeps Hitting Dingers

A-Rod went 4 for 5 last night with 2 HomeRuns and 3 RBIs and is now hitting an amazing. 400 for the season. He has 14 homeruns in the month of April, which is fastest that anyone in history has hit 14 HRs. He needs one more homerun this month to pass Albert Pujols for the most HRs in the month of April, period.

Lost in A-Rod's amazing April is that the fact that the Yankees starting pitching and bullpen suck right now. The team has scored 25 runs in the past 4 games and has lost each of those games. In the past 4 games, the starting pitching - not including Andy Pettitte - hasn't gotten out of the 5th inning and the bullpen is completely overworked having pitched 60+ of the Yankees 160+ innings to start the season. That's just way too much this early in the season. One of the reasons they've had to do so is because of the mass amount of injuries to the Yankees starting pitching staff. Chien Ming-Wang comes back tonight and hopefully he can right the ship. Also, Phil Hughes, Yankees pitching phenom comes up from the minors to start his first major league game on Thursday night against the Jays. I'm looking forward to that one.

Drive.....Fast!!

Drive - I'm always willing to give a new TV show a chance....especially when it's on the Fox network which continually puts out great shows, including my favorites of 24 and Prison Break.

So, when Drive was announced as a new show a few weeks ago, I knew that I was going to give it a chance. After watching the first three hours of the show last week, I'm really intrigued by it. The show revolves around a number of characters who were enticed to enter an illegal cross country race. One character wants to win the race to find his kidnapped wife. Another is a mother who wants to escape from her abusive husband. Another is a man who has a year to live and wants to see everything life has to offer. There are many more characters that have been shown in the initial episodes of the show, but I won't note all of them here.

Right now, I think it's a 4 star show with 5 star potential depending on where the producers take it. They could wreck it with ridiculous plots or they could make it a 5 star show. In the first 3 hours of the show, we've already seen a lot of detail on the characters and I'm definitely planning to watch this show and see where the storyline leads.

A-Rod's Streak Continues as Yanks Lose to Sox

A-Rod's early season tear continues, as he has 31 RBIs in his first 16 games and a ridiculous holy crapola! slugging percentage of 1.030. That's not a missprint; I checked in two places. For the record, a slugging percentage of .750 is considered to be awesome. So, A-Rod's early season numbers are just plain ridiculous. He also has a 16 game hitting streak to start the season. Watch out Joe DiMaggio!

Kidding. Of course, I won't neglect to mention that the Yankees suffered a horrible loss to the Sox on Friday night, when Torre panicked yet again and took out Andy Pettitte too soon and went to Mariano Rivera with 1 out in the 8th inning. Hours early on an interview with Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN, Torre said he wouldn't do that if faced with that decision. Just ridiculous.

Yesterday was another bad loss. While it's apparent that the Yankees will win a lot of games with their tremendous offense, yesterday's loss really shows you just how important good starting pitching is. It's comforting that the Yankees are at 8-8 when they have 3 of their 5 starting pitchers on the disabled list. Hopefully when Wang, Mussina and Pavano come off the DL, the ship will be righted.

Happy 46th Birthday Donnie Baseball!

Alex Comes Through in the Clutch Again!

I hate it when Yankees games are on during the day because I’m not able to listen to it on the radio or able to watch it on TV, because I’m at a thing called work. So, I resorted to watching it by the Gamer Track on CBSsportsline today. Well, I watched most of the game until there was 2 outs in the Bottom of the 9th inning. I turned it off because I thought that the Yankees were going to lose. Hey, they won 2 out of 3 against the Indians, right. That’s good enough for me, right?

Well, when I got in the car after work, I heard Mike and the Mad Dog unbelievably talking like the Yankees had swept the Indians today, so I turned on WCBS-880 and heard John Sterling’s highlight recap of the game. To make a long story short, Alex Rodriguez came through in the clutch again. That would have been weird to say last year, but definitely not this year.

The Yankees were down by 4 runs with no one on and two outs in the Bottom of the Ninth and after singles by Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu along with a HR by Josh Phelps and a walk to Johnny Damon. A-Rod then came up and won it on the second pitch thrown to him with a big 3 run HR blast. It was his second walk-off homerun of the season and sent him, the bench and the fans that were left at the Stadium into a complete frenzy. He sure is coming through this year and it’s nice to see the fans finely routing for him.

You’ll see a new feature at the top right side of my blog with the tracker of Alex’s totals throughout 14 games this season. 10 HRs and 26 RBIs in 14 games. That’s pretty ridiculous. Hope he keeps it up.

What a Disgusting Showing by NBC News

If I was working at NBC News last night, I can guarantee that I would have been fired. I would have been fired because the second that I found that that the station was planning to air a crazed manifesto from a sadistic f*ck, I would have taken the dvd and smashed it into a thousand pieces. If it was on tape, I would have happily pulled the tape out of it, cut it into little ribbons shreds and lit it on fire. If I wasn't able to get it before it aired, I would have Jimmy Fly Snuka'd Brian Williams from the top ropes as he was airing the piece at 6:30.

Seriously, how dare the network show the rantings of a madmen who just a few days ago killed over 30 people at Va Tech. It's offensive. It's disgusting. And it is uncalled for. It's completely ridiculous that they bleeped out the curse words of the madman during his manifesto, when in reality, showing the tape on national television during primetime was a thousand times more offensive. How in the world do scores of politicians come out against games like Grand Theft Auto and say they are offensive, when it's a damn video game. This is real life and everyone stands on the sidelines and doesn't say anything while a madman gets the airtime that he so dearly wanted.

It really makes me wonder what type of world we live in when we consider this to be news and not nearly as offensive as the whole Imus B.S. a couple weeks ago. I won't go off on that rant again because it doesn't have a direct connection with this, but I think it is applicable when you're talking about what we consider offensive and what isn't. NBC News knew this was offensive. That's why they shamelessly tried to have Brian Williams cavet it by saying that they were working with VA law enforcement to ensure that other madmen didn't copy cat. How exactly are they doing that? Was Brian Williams signing up to be a VA State Trooper?

Plain and simple, NBC wanted to get the "scoop" and thus they showed a clip that no one else had. They thought it was okay if they caveted the clip with the painstaking process they went through of deciding whether or not to air it. Then they aired a piece of it on the 6:30 news, caveted it with a disclaimer and then shamelessly plugged the fact that more of the manifesto would be aired on The Today Show.

I am completely disgusted and shocked by this horrible display of judgement by NBC.

Entertain Me....with Funny and Unfunny

Entertain Me....with Funny and Unfunny

Funny

Blades of Glory - This was just an overall funny movie. I think me and other people will always, always compare any Will Ferrell movie ever made in the future to Old School and Anchorman. Those were two of the funniest movies ever...So it's no surprise that any fan of Will Ferrell will always compare those two movies to anything he does again.

Blades of Glory was funny and it had its moments, but I seriously think that the funniest parts of the movie were when Will Arnett - of Arrested Development fame - and Amy Poehler - Arnett's real life wife and the funniest actor on SNL - were involved in the scene. They were funny as hell...in every single scene that they were involved in. Don't get me wrong, Will Ferrell and John Heder were funny, but they just weren't that funny.

Speaking of not funny....

UnFunny

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters - Let me first say that I love Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Smelmooo turned me onto the show a year or two ago and I think that every TV episode is completely unique and ridiculously funny. So it was pretty appropriate that I went to see the movie on Monday with my boy Smelmooo.

Overall, I was so disappointed with the movie as it just wasn't funny at all. I am used to 15 minute ATHF episodes and what I got was 83 minutes of pure drivel that wasn't cohesive, wasn't funny and didn't make any sense at all. Maybe I should have been stoned or something. It definitely would have made it better.

R.I.P. LaRon Cephas and Victims of the VA Tech shooting

LaRon Cephas was a basketball player at Maryland when I was there. This morning, there was a story in the Washington Post about how he collapsed yesterday in his Annapolis home and died at the age of 29.

While he didn't play a lot at Maryland, he definitely had a huge impact on the 2001 National Championship team as a role player and overall good person. After college, LaRon worked for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, helping to shape the youth of tomorrow.

After we graduated, I never forgot LaRon Cephas...not because of his playing days, or not because of what he did for the Boys & Girls Club - I never knew about that until today - but because everytime I told my wife that something was facetious - humorous or amusing or not meant to be taken seriously or literally - I instead said it was "LaRon Cephas."

Today, there is nothing funny about a 29-year-old person dying. And since I'm 29 and knew of LaRon, I'm extremely upset after hearing this sad news today.

Equally upsetting was the shooting at VA Tech yesterday. What a horrible, atrocious and vile act by a madman. What in the world would possess someone to do something like that is beyond me. My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those killed and injured.

Great Catch by Jeter

I've seen Derek Jeter make a lot of great plays over the course of his Yankees career, and the double play that he pulled off against the Minnesota Twins, was probably one of the top 3 best plays he's ever made. Of course behind the play against the A's in the 2001 Playoffs and the play against the Red Sox in 2004 (pictured above) when he dove into the stands.

Everyone says that catching fly balls in the Twins Metrodome is really hard to do because the ball gets lost in the white dome roof. Well, Jeter's flyball catch took the cakelast night. With two men on base, a short pop up was hit into shallow left field and Jeter sprinted backward, didn't turn once and caught an over the shoulder fly ball - Willie Mays style. He then quickly spun around and doubled off the Twins player who assumed the ball would fall for a single.

Not with Derek Jeter on the scene....

Just to Clarify Yesterday's Blog

I've heard from a bunch of people about my blog about Don Imus' comments - including comments from a lot of my friends who I respect greatly - and I want to clarify something.

I think Imus' comments were completely inappropriate and I definitely think he never should have said them and should be punished for them. The Rutgers Women's Basketball team did nothing wrong. They aren't in the public eye and shouldn't be open for ridicule. And they did nothing, nothing, nothing to deserve to be called horrible names by a craggy old man who broadcasts to millions. I do agree with a comment that one of my friends made that Imus should be held to a much higher standard than other people because he has a microphone in front of him and a platform for expressing his views to millions. I've thought about that a lot and definitely agree with it.

What I still disagree with and something that I wanted to highlight in my blog yesterday is the fact that in my opinion Americans care way too much about words and meaningless things, and not enough about actual actions that gravely affect our world and our well being. That's not to say that Imus' words were acceptable - they weren't.

I guess in a way, I'm trying to say that Americans care much more about comments made by Mr. Imus and who has custody of Anna Nicole Smith's baby and less about the fact that global warming is slowly destroying our earth...less about the fact that the people we are trying to protect - the Iraqi's - are protesting our existence in their country. ...less about the fact that thousands of our soldiers have not just been killed, but maimed and injured forever by our presence in Iraq. But like I said yesterday, it's just my pittingly opinion. ... I could be wrong..

I promise that I'll be back to posting on my opinion on videogames, the Yankees and movies -- including the recently seen Babel and Blades of Glory -- you know... highlighting and giving value to the meaningless things in life ...How's that for contradicting myself?

Our World is Too Damn Politically Correct

I'm a pretty open minded person. I'm a former reporter and believe in free speech; Free speech that doesn't endanger other people. I do think there are limits to what constitutes free speech... I believe there's a big difference when someone makes an off the cuff joke and when someone spews hate-filled slurs. In the case of Don Imus, I think he made a very badly ill advised joke.

I think it was stupid as hell for Imus to call the Rutgers Women's Basketball team names. But I also know that he was kidding about it. And I know that he's a crusty old man who says pretty much whatever he wants to because he knows he's listened to by millions of people across the country . That doesn't make it right for what he said. He was stupid for what he said. But it still was a joke and not a hate-filled slur like it's being characterized.

Too many people though -- including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson -- are taking his comments out of context and making it seem like Don Imus hates black people everywhere. It was not a racial slur. It was a joke. Imus is an ignorant fool, but it still was a joke. I used to listen to Imus a lot, so I'm well aware of all of the work that he and his wife do for children with cancer - about 50% of which are minority children. Why is this fact mentioned only by Imus? Why do people in America care more about words than actual actions that are done by this man to improve the lives of kids with cancer? It seems to be an epidemic in our society. People pay less attention to a president who sends thousands of troops into Iraq for a meaningless cause and more about what a politician says about how we should get our troops out of Iraq because they are fighting a meaningless cause.

When it comes down to it I think that too many people in this world are way too damn politically correct and can't take a joke. Each and every single day, they take things out of context and blow it up in the world perpetrated by instant blogs, the Internet, YouTube and the blow-everything-out of proportion media.

And because of all of the outrage, Imus apologized for hours on his show today. He went on the Al Sharpton Show. And then tonight, NBC News suspended him for two weeks because of his comments. NBC was bowing to political pressure, plain and simple. They knew they had to do something. And because Imus brings in millions of dollars a year to the station, they didn't ask him to resign or fire him -- which was ridiculously being asked for -- but decided to suspend him. Maybe it was appropriate because Imus's comments were inappropriate. But it still was just a joke. That's just my opinion...I could be wrong.

As anyone who reads my blog knows, you know that I love to post pictures with my blogs. Well, I'm not going to post an actual picture of Imus, because I heard if you do, after anyone views the photo, has their computer screen melt.. I don't know...maybe it's just a rumor that I read on the Internet.

Alex Comes Through in the Clutch!

I watched it all unfold on Yankees Encore this morning and still can't believe it happened. Bottom of the ninth, two outs and down to his last strike, Alex Rodriguez came through in the clutch, blasting a grand slam to lead the Yankees to a come from behind 10-7 win against the Baltimore Orioles. Alex has hit game winning hits for the Yankees before, but I don't believe he's ever hit a more dramatic one then the grand slam he hit yesterday.

From the moment he hit it, he knew it was gone, the fans knew it was gone and the entire Yankees dugout knew it was gone as the Stadium just exploded in cheers.

As anyone who knows baseball, you know that it's a game where players fail to get a hit 7 times out of 10. If you succeed 3 out of 10 times, you're known as one of the greats in the history of the game. I don't know anywhere else, especially business, when you can be considered a success when you only succeed 30% of the time. Alex, like other baseball greats is not always going to be successful when he comes to bat. I don't know what it is, maybe just bad luck, but it always seems like it he's failing that 70% of the time when the game in on the line.

Yesterday was one of the 30% of the times that he didn't fail. And hopefully Yankee fans everywhere will start cheering Alex all of the time, no matter if and when he fails in the future. Yesterday was a great, great moment in Alex Rodriguez's time as a Yankee. It's the moment I was waiting for and I think it was also a moment that a lot of Yankee fans were waiting for from Alex Rodriguez.

The Tax Man Rapeth...

Well, like I said I would, I jinxed the hell out of me and my wife...because the Tax Man has cometh and the tax man has taken away in a big, friggin way. God, I hate taxes.

If you remember my previous blog a few months ago about this, I am always excited to do my taxes each year, because for the past 10 years, it's meant that I get money back from the government. Well, not this year. This year hurt. A lot.

And while I'm starting to slowly fill up small, nightclub venues due to my Eddie Van Halen-like Guitar Hero exploits, I'm not booking the bigger shows yet that would allow me to cushion the Tax Man's latest blow. ....No, I'm not crazy...Just trying to be funny. And comedy is the only thing that can help me live with this misery! ....Damn you Tax Man!!

Hammer of the Gods!!

I woke up this morning exhausted. My head hurt, my hands hurt, my fingers have calluses on them and my knuckles were throbbing. No, I was not playing the knuckle shuffle yesterday.... I was playing Guitar Hero II for five hours last night.

The game came out yesterday and let's just say that I was determined to get it. I called Circuit City - located a half hour from my house on Monday afternoon - to see what time they would be getting it in on Tuesday. Then on Monday night, the anticipation grew and I researched the closest Circuit City store to my two Tuesday meetings in Philadelphia. The closest store was 2 miles off of Route 95 on my way home from Philadelphia. So I called the store at noon on Tuesday and they said only had a couple copies left. So, I suffered through a 2-hour long meeting and then another 1 1/2 hours of traffic before I reached the Circuit City. Did I mention that I called the store again 15 minutes before I got there just to see if they had copies left.

When I got there, they had MANY more than just a few copies. Bastards....So I picked it up and handed the cashier a $100 bill (which was actually from my January Hold Em tourney win in AC or a Xmas present, I can't figure which). I promptly received $4 in change from the cashier. Yes $4....

I bought the game home and I must say that it was amazing from beginning to end. The game comes with a replica of a Gibson Xplorer guitar used by the hair bands from the 1980s and includes 70+ songs from the likes of Van Halen, KISS, The Toadies and numerous other bands. Unfortunately there are no Led Zeppelin songs (which is where the Hammer of the Gods reference comes from in the blog title). I would have easily paidanother $50 for a game that had a few Zeppelin songs. Hopefully some songs will come out in the future XBox Live download.

Overall the game is a instrument version of Dance Dance Revolution, but instead of a dance mat you're playing with a guitar. During the game you have to follow and quickly execute various notes and chords that are played by the band. It really makes you feel that you are actually playing along with the music. For the past two days, when I've listened to songs on the radio, I'm visualizing what they would look like if they were in the game. Well, at least it's not me visually carjacker a Hummer after playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City!

It's a tough game and probably the most fun I've ever had playing a videogame. It's really something to see. I've even got my wife - who hates videogames more than America hates Osama Bin Laden - to play and actually enjoy the game.

Just an awesome game that I will be playing exclusively for a long time to come. Highly recommended!