The Bronx is MotherF#cking Burning

In the Summer of 1977, I was in my mother's belly.

Son of Sam was on the Loose.

And Billy Martin was fighting with Reggie Jackson and the Boss.

I watched the 8 episode mini-series of The Bronx is Burning on ESPNHD and simply loved it.

I'm a huge Yankees fan, so I already had a vested interest in watching the series. Combining new HD coverage and old school 1977 footage, the series was very well done. It told the story of the summer of 1977 in New York and covered everything from the Yankees World Series championship to detail about the Mayoral race, the Summer Blackout and the Son of Sam case. While it seemed like 90 percent of it was mainly on the Yankees, I thought that otherwise the series was well done and I really enjoyed it.

Highly recommended when it comes out on DVD

My Favorite Day of Year

For some people, Christmas is their favorite day of the year. For others, it's their birthday. For me, it's the day that I draft my team for the Fantasy Football Season. Tonight, I had my second draft of the week and I'm really, really excited about both of my teams. Call me a loser. Call me a dork. And I'll call you a donkey r$ping sh#teat#r.

On Monday, I drafted in my keeper league "Cheeseburgers are Yummy." In this league, the scoring system is a little different than usual leagues. You 1 point for every 15 Rec/Rush Yards, 1 for 35 Pass Yards and 6 pts for a Rush/Rec/Pass TD. There's points for Defense and Kickers, but I won't bore you any further.

My team the P#ssy Trolls is now the proud owner of the following players (Unfortunately I don't have a team logo):

QB - Phil Rivers

RB - Frank Gore

WR - Torry Holt

W/R - Rudi Johnson

W/R - Marvin Harrison

W/T - Donald Driver

TE - Kellen Winslow

K - Neil Rackers

Def - Baltimore

Bench - Jon Kitna

Bench - Adrian Peterson

Bench - Brandon Jackson

Bench - Bernard Berrian

Bench - Anquan Boldin

Bench - Ladell Betts

Tonight, I drafted in my XFL Auxiliary League draft and my other team Cobra Kai Bodybags selected a stellar, stellar team. I'm on cloud 9 right now. In this league, the scoring system is a little different where you get 1 point for every 10 Rec/Rush Yards, 1 for 25 Pass Yards, 1 Pt per Reception, 6 pts for a Rush/Rec TD and 4 for Pass TDs. There's points for Defense and Kickers, but again...I won't bore you any further.

Cobra Kai Bodybags

QB - Donovan McNabb

RB - Ladainian Tomlinson

RB/WR - Thomas Jones

WR - Steve Smith

WR - Marvin Harrison

TE - Alge Crumpler

K - Jason Elam

Def - Chicago

Bench - Eli Manning

Bench - Edgerrin James

Bench - Lavernues Coles

Bench - Marion Barber III

Let me know what you think of both teams. You know my response if you call me a loser....

How Famous People Get Their Kicks

I've been pretty quiet on all of the hoopla that has been going on with Mike Vick lately. First off and most importantly, I'll say that what he was a reprehensible act that is so heinous that it's truly, truly disgusting. To hurt something that can't defend itself is truly the sign of cowardice in my book.

Maybe it was the culture that he grew up in, maybe he's got a screw loose or maybe he's just a sick sadistic f*ck. Or maybe it's something else ...One thing though that hasn't been mentioned is the topic of how professional athletes and movie stars get their kicks. Famous people aren't like other people. They don't do the same things that regular joes do. They don't spend the same time of money. They don't live in the same type of houses. They need to do everything big just to get the same type of endorphin rush that us little guys get.

They need to bet big. They need to do insane things. They don't get their kicks from winning a $100 no-limit tournament like regular people do. They don't stay in Sandals resorts for a week. They do other things that we wouldn't even dream of doing to get their rush feeling. Whether it is dodging 300 pound linebackers or adopting 6 babies from Kenya. They simply need to do things out of the ordinary, because they are out of the ordinary type of people. This dogfighting thing, while completely horrible and reprehensive is maybe an example of a famous person doing something to get that rush...however hideous the act was.

The World is Too Much...with New Videogames

You ask where I've been....Well, I've been playing some new video games damnit...Sorry that I've been too busy with work and playing Madden 08 and Bioshock to think about blogging. I still have a brain full of mush from it all, so I'm going to post my favorite poem of all time. William Wordsworth's The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn

It's 3:30 and I'm sitting home in front of my computer working...yes working and it is HAILING and pouring like a b'yatch outside. It's still August, right?

Don't Threaten Me With An Entertaining Time

My wife and I had a fabulous Double Feature Movie Extravaganza last night at the Paperboy Mansion. We watched Disturbia and Shooter back-to-back and thought that both were excellent thrillers.

Disturbia - It's a story about a high school kid that punches out his Spanish teacher - ay carumba! - and is given 3 months house arrest. For the first few scenes of the movie, he bums around doing nothing but playing Ghost Recon and listening to music. So, in response, his mother cuts off his Xbox Live subscription - which would be like cutting off 9 of my 10 toes - and his iTunes subscription - which would be like cutting off 9 of my wife's 10 toes and his TV - enough already, okay. So, to entertain himself he decides to spy on the neighbors.

One of his neighbors in a little high school hottie - for the record she's 23 in real life, Mr. Chris Hansen! - while another is a crazy psycho who kills people. I won't give away the ending, but I will tell you that we were on the edge of our seats the entire time. It's not a straight horror flick, but it definitely had some disgusting and scary scenes. Like the movie poster says, it's definitely "a scorching nail-biter." Highly recommended.

Shooter - I was expecting nothing at all from this movie. What I got was a great edge of your seat action flick starring the great Marky Mark. The movie is about a former sniper who is framed for the murder of an Ethopian archbishop - you might want to say away from this flick Chosen One. Marky Mark is told by a secret government group that someone is planning to kill the president and they want him to plan the assassination so they could know how to stop the killer. In reality, the group wanted to kill this Ethopian Archbishop who was standing next to the President during a speech. It's too difficult to explain and a little confusing, but I love the action scenes in this movie. ...plus stunner Kate Mara - of the great New York Giants Mara family - is the leading actress in the movie, so it's got two things going for it. Highly recommended.

Goodbye Scooter

When I was growing up, watching the Yankees on WPIX was a mainstay in my house. And with it, so were the voices of Phil Rizzuto and Bill White. Both weren't the best announcers ever, but at times Phil Rizzuto was funny and entertaining and he made baseball interesting. I'll admit, even I can find baseball boring at times - that's why I love taping it and fast forwarding it between pitches - but Phil Rizzuto make the game move along so much faster because he was so entertaining. Sometimes he never even talked about the game that was happening. He talked about canolis and his family and everything and anything in between.

I never saw Phil Rizzuto play shortstop for the Yankees, but I'll never forget his time as a Yankee broadcaster.

The Scooter died today at the age of 89. He hasn't broadcasted a game in at least 10 years, but I'll never forget his voice and never forget the imprint that he left on my life.

Holy Cow!

Bringing It in New Brunswick

Quick, funny story....My wife and I went out in New Brunswick, NJ yesterday - home of the Rutgers State University of New Jersey - and we nearly got into a brew ha ha. To make a long story short, we saw a couple pulling out of a space near the restaurant we were eating at that night so I pulled our car two car lengths in front of the guy to allow them to get out.

Between traffic coming in the other direction and cars behind us, the guy's wife/girlfriend/paid call girl couldn't get out of her space. I saw this and kept inching further up so they would have more space. The next thing I know, this tool gets out of the passenger seat of the car, bangs on the back of my car - he friggin banged on the back of my car - and screams at me: "how are we supposed to get out of the spot if you aren't giving us any space." I promptly screamed back at him, "tell your bitch ho to take driving lessons." I then pulled out my nine and the guy ran back to his car screaming like a little b'yatch as my wife flipped him the bird.

Quite an interesting night ...and everything about that story is true except for me pulling out my nine...it was actually a magnum...

Addicted to Smack and Crackberry

I just got a new Blackberry 8830 yesterday and I am already addicted to this crackberry-like substance. Addicted some in a good way and some in a bad way.

In a good way...
It looks sleek as hell and I feel like a V.I.P., even though I'm not in the least..

In in a bad way...
Last night, my wife and I literally spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to turn up the volume. It was a completely frustrating experience.

I spent hours surfing the internet and sending emails...My plan is to use both as a phone and email device, but it definitely isn't as compact as my old LG phone. I think I'll get used to it, but it's going to take some time....hopefully I can figure out how to turn up the damn volume...

Cheater, Cheater...Steroid Eater

Barry Bonds is an a-hole and a cheater. He's cheated on his taxes, his wife and on the game of baseball. I don't hate him because he's black - like he likes to mention to the media whenever he gets the chance. I hate him because he's a cheater that made the all-time homerun mark a sham.

Prior to 2001, he was one of the top 5 players in baseball. After 2001, his body and statistics both ballooned and he became the best player in baseball. Pitchers were terrified of him simply because all he had to do was flick his wrist and pound the ball out of the park. If steroids hadn't entered the picture for Barry, I think a lot of those bombs that he hit into McCovey Cove would have instead been fly ball outs at the warning track.

I truly think it's a travesty that he broke Hank Aaron's 755 all-time homerun mark earlier this week. The All-time Homerun mark is greatest record in all of professional sports earlier and it sucks that Barry Bonds is now the all-time homerun champ.

I'm not big on personal stats or records because they are usually meaningless fodder for sports radio hosts to compare players across history. I do believe though that the home run record is a record that is ten stories above any other stat out there. It's a tribute to a truly remarkable athlete. Something that Mr. Barry Bonds is because of his chemically Drago-enhanced body.

Prior to 2001, Barry Bonds was on his way to becoming a Hall of Famer. Now, he's just the all-time leader in homeruns. And he's an a-hole, because he cheated to get there. Tell me there's no proof and I ask you to peruse the picture at the top of this post. No, his head is not full of helium.
Too bad that Barry won't be around when A-Rod breaks his mark in 2014. I'd rather not write what I was about to write, but I think you get the picture...

Don't Threaten Me With An Entertaining Time: Part II

Back again with another edition of Don't Threaten Me With An Entertaining Time...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – I got into this series late in the game because I thought it was just for children. After about the 4th book, one of my friends recommended it so I took the plunge. I really liked the first 4 books and just felt the series was getting better and better as it went along. It’s clear from reading the books that kids would enjoy the book, but it must be some pretty smart kids who are reading these books because they definitely are written for people with a high school reading level. The last book in the series didn’t disappoint. The end was a little anti-climatic, but overall I enjoyed the last book and thoroughly enjoyed the series.

Zodiac – While this might have been the longest movie that the wife and I have seen in awhile – it clocked in at 2 hours at 38 minutes! And took us two sitting to get through – we thoroughly enjoyed this movie. As anyone knows, Zodiac is about a sick serial killer. The movie follows the storyline lines of a reporter who covered the killings, the police force who tried to solve the case, and a cartoonist at the SF Chronicle who goes on to write a book about the case. The case was never solved – which in all honesty I didn’t know. This movie was just really well written and is highly recommended; if you have 2 hours and 38 minutes laying around…

The Number 23 – My wife and I have a thing about the number 23…not the movie, just the number. My favorite baseball player of all-time is Don Mattingly – #23. My wife’s first class as a teacher had 23 kids in it. We started dating on December 23, 2001. We got married on July 23, 2005. So there’s a pretty good chance that I’m never forgetting our anniversary.

Because of our love for the Number 23, we were excited to watch the movie and nearly went to the movie theater when it came out. When the DVD came in the mail from Netflix last week, we managed to get through 20 minutes of the movie and turned it off. Not sure why we did it, but it definitely didn’t hold our attention.

Don't Threaten Me With an Entertaining Time

My entertainment blog entry about movies, TV shows, video games and books (uh, not that often about books) used to be called Entertain Me! Well, I've decided to update the title somewhat to pay homage to one of the drunk contestants in my favorite show on TV today Rock of Love.

Without further ado, here's the inaugural edition of Don't Threaten Me with an Entertaining Time.
Weeds Season 2 – Dude….like if you haven’t seen this show already, I implore you to go out and buy Showtime ….and uh buy Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD...or just buy some special brownies. They are that good dude...not the brownies, the show... In short, because I have the munchies, it’s a show about a suburban mother who has two kids. Her husband has a fatal heart attack and for some reason she doesn’t have money so she decides to start selling weed to people around her rich suburban community. It’s a really good show dude. …I highly recommend it. ...uh, I’m so stoned, I don’t even know what’s going on….

Live Free or Die Hard - It’s a stupid name for a movie, but it wasn’t a bad movie at all. Let me first say that Die Hard is my favorite movie of all-time. I taped it on HBO HD the other day and am halfway through it on my way to watching it for the thousandth time. I know every single word in that movie…."The fire’s been called off my friend. No one is coming to save you. You might as well come out and join the others.”

Anyway, I liked Die Harder; thought Die Hard with a Vengeance was passable, so I looked forward to seeing Bruce Willis resurrect his career with the 4th iteration of Die Hard. He did not disappoint. I won’t give you any plot points, but to say it’s a Die Hard for a new generation. I’d recommend it.

Back tomorrow with the second edition of Don't Threaten Me With an Entertaining Time.

Random Thoughts....

For those of you who know me, I know you're insanely jealous that I started working from home in June. Since my wife ended her school year as a teacher in mid-June, she's been home everyday working on her graduate thesis. Since we both were working at home, I felt it was appropriate to enforce a dress code in our basement home office. So, each day, we arrive at work after a short 10 second commute wearing our best Pajama Casual attire... It's quite wonderful.

There was a news story the other day about how a circuit court - I think it was a circuit court - is denying insured people in New Orleans reimbursement after the Katrina floods because the breaking of the levees wasn't an act of God, which is what these people were insured for. That's just b.s. in my opinion.

For years, NFL fans have been saying that Mike Vick hadn't fulfilled his "sick" athletic potential. Well, they sure were wrong about the sick part. I don't even know what else to say about this.

My favorite time of year is coming soon. No, it's not XMAS...It's Fantasy Football season. I've got three Fantasy Football teams this year. The team names are P#ssy Trolls - from Clerks 2 - Big Blue Towelies - a combination of the NY Giants nickname and the character Towelie from South Park and my new favorite Cobra Kai Bodybags - from the Karate Kid movie. Which is your favorite?

I'll be back shortly with some reviews of the DVD release of 300, Live Free or Die Hard, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Weeds Season 2. That's all for now....dude.

Funny Pictures From the Trip

We took nearly 600 pictures on our week long trip and I just couldn't include all of them in the blog, so I wanted to dedicate a special blog to the funny pictures that we took over the course of the week. Some of these pictures we literally slammed on the brakes and pulled over on the side of the road just so I could take pictures of it.

The funniest picture of the trip, simply because of the fact that I careened across two lanes to pull over when I saw this restaurant. For anyone who loves South Park, you know why I had to take this picture at all costs ...

I've already posted this picture, but I had to post it again...because it's funny and I'm perverted...

A picture of my wife nearly being ensnared in the talons of a fake 10 foot eagle statue....



Sitting on cacti isn't fun....

A dinosaur from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. And if you tell me you've never seen it or hated it when you watched it, you're lying!