The Joker

I saw the best movie of the summer last night -- "The Dark Knight" -- with my wife, Smelmooo and Tangent Woman and it did not disappoint.

Simply put, Heath Ledger is the best Joker there's ever been. He's better than Jack Nicholson's Joker in the 1989 Batman movie. He's better than Cesar Romero's Batman from the 1960s TV show. He is better than them all because for scenes at a time, I didn't think it was Heath Ledger playing The Joker character..I thought it was The Joker himself.

He was breathtaking, wonderful and phenomenal in every single scene of "The Dark Knight". Smelmooo was telling me the other day that a friend of his told him that the Joker was shown so many times in "The Dark Knight" that the movie should have instead been called "The Joker." I agree with that. He completely made this movie.

I won't even talk about Christian Bale's horrible Batman. He was goddamn horrific, but I digress. This movie wasn't about Batman. It was all about the Joker. Heath Ledger's performance should be celebrated for all time.

A Shock to My System

I'm upset. ...

I just found out that the Giants traded Jeremy Shockey to the Saints for a 2nd and 5th Round pick. It's a nice trade for the Giants (based solely on draft pick value) but I'm upset about it.

How would you feel when one of your favorite players gets traded? He's a big time player and when he's healthy - like for those 5 games...5 years ago - he's one of the best tight ends in the game. I know he was a distraction, but the Giants didn't make themselves better today. In the end, all the team did was trade Shockey because they believed that his negatives outweighed his positives.

Sure, he's a baby.

Sure, he whines ALL THE TIME.

Sure, in the offseason, he refused to train in NJ, instead preferring to stay with his hot chackitas in Miami....

Sure, he would have been a distraction to the team throughout training camp and probably for the season.

Sure, all of it would have hurt the team's chances to repeat.

Sure, there's plenty of reasons that the Giants should have traded Shockey, but that doesn't make me happy about it today.

I knew it was going to happen eventually..sort of like a terminal relative who you know is going to pass away. When it happens though, it doesn't make it hurt any less.

Does this mean I have to burn his jersey? Jesus. ...

Joba Dominates in Yankees Win

Smelmooo and I attended a great and looonnng 5 hour, 12 inning Yankees-A's game today. The Yankees won 4-3, so the day ended on a positive note, but it sure took a long time (446 pitches from both teams) for the Yankees to get their 52nd win of the season.

For the 2nd time this season, I got to see Joba Chamberlain pitch in person and he was phenomenal as usual, pitching 6 strong innings giving up 1 run and striking out 8 batters. In his 6 innings (18 outs) of pitching he directly contributed to making 12 of the 18 outs for the team. Along with his 8 K's, he started 1 double play and had two others broken up on Fielders Choices. That's solid!

My favorite part of the day for Joba though, came on the very first batter (Ryan Sweeney) of the game. With the count 1-2, Sweeney stepped out of the batters box and called time out as Joba was halfway through his windup. Joba didn't show that he was pissed off, but on the very next pitch he plunked Sweeney on the leg.

It's that kind of thing that I love about Joba.

It's the very same kind of "no one is going to screw with me attitude" that Roger Clemens - sans the HGH and steroids injections - brought to the Yankees in the late 1990s. And it's that kind of attitude that is going to make Joba the Yankees ace for the next decade.

Today's win for the Yankees ended when Jose Molina came through in the clutch by taking an emotional hit by pitch -- insert tongue in cheek here -- with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th inning.

A HBP to win the game is something that I've never seen before in a game and it definitely wrapped up a memorable last visit for me to the House that Ruth Built.

Wives Say The Funniest Things...

My wife is the cutest thing.

We were watching the Yankees-Blue Jays game tonight and she asked how the Blue Jays could be in the American League when they played their home games in Toronto. ...

I didn't have a good answer.

Did You Support The Stache??

I found it pretty cool how the Yankees had an impromptu giveaway day on June 9th when they gave the first 20,000 fans in attendence Jason Giambi replica mustaches. The campaign was part of the Yankees' "Support the Stache" campaign to get fans to vote in first baseman Jason Giambi for the final All Star spot in Tuesday's Mid-Season Classic.

I supported the stache campaign by voting for him about 60 times on MLB.com. Did you Support the Stache? ...

Because you did not Support the Stache, Jason Giambi was not voted in as the final All Star.

Instead, the honor went to Evan "not Eva" Longoria.

Now I may be "Desperate", but I think that this is a great injustice...

Let's compare the cold, hard stats:

• Giambi: .257 AVG, 18 HR, 54 RBI, 45 Runs, 44 BBs, 47 Ks, .534 SLG, .394 OBP
• Longoria: .281 AVG, 16 HRs, 53 RBIs, 44 Runs, 33 BBs, 76 Ks, .527 SLG, .352 OBP

While Giambi is 24 points below Longoria in average, he's beating him in every other category. He also has multiple game winning hits for the Yankees this season and he has pretty much been the team's most valuable player this season.

I have no doubt that Longoria defeated Giambi in the final All-Star fan voting because Giambi admitted that he used steroid and human growth hormone in the past. (and also because some girls voted for him because they thought he was related to Eva.)

The simple fact that Giambi didn't lie about his drug usage to the grand jury (like Bonds did), admitted to the NY media that he used it and has asked for forgiveness to the public should have been enough for people to forgive his mistakes.

Who among us hasn't made mistakes?

And who among us didn't Support the Stache...? (you hairless lip freaks)...

Funny Picture

I saw this the other day and NEEDED to take a picture of it because I thought it was funny as hell.

Awesome!

There were no thrown clubs and only two lost balls yesterday in my heroic return to the links.

My pal TOSM and I played really well in a shotgun best ball tournament and turned in a scorecard of 77 over 18 holes. We didn't win any prizes, but that score is pretty respectable in my book!

We also spent a fair amount of time on the course talking about our new endeavor...I won't share details until it's firmed up, but I will tell you that TOSM is an old friend of mine from back in the day. We met in the summer of 94 when we both attended Jerry Izenberg's summer Sportswriting Camp ....

Yes, we're both huge dorks.

More to come on our endeavor later on...are you salivating in anticipation to hear about our future dork endeavor?

Also, after golf, we drove up to Mo-town to play poker and I ended up winning $112. So, it turned out to be a pretty super sweet day.

Fore!

On Saturday, I'm golfing for the first time in 2 years at a Fourth of July Shotgun Tourney at the Apple Mountain Golf Club. Be sure to watch out for thrown clubs and thousands of lost balls! Fore!!

Random Thoughts

I started watching Season 1 of Rome on HBO On Demand yesterday and think it's awesome. It's definitely not a show that you can just put on in the background as you do work. You really have to pay attention to it to figure out what's going on. And for someone who like ADHD like me, that's tough. I've watched 1 1/2 episodes so far and am still a little murky on the plot details. ...

My client held its 9th open house in two weeks this past Monday. During the 9 different open houses, I was yelled at, accidentally spit on, screamed at, beraded, stared down and chewed out on multiple occasions. And I'm exhausted! There's a 10th planned in mid July and another 4 planned sometime in early August. I should just quit already. ...

The Yankees sure are streaky. They scored more runs in one inning last night (9) than they had in the past 4 games combined. That's crazy. ...

Damn you Smelmooo for leading on your loyal readers for days on end with the "secret" that you were on vacation. That's just plain wrong! ...

After getting my moonroof smashed in a few weeks ago by a flying rock, I'm now terrified to open up the moonroof - even on a nice day - for fear of getting smashed in the head by another flying projectile. ...