Surprise! Curt Schilling Sucks! Again!

When the ol' Google RSS Reader notifies me that Curt Schilling has graced the blogosphere with donut encrusted pearls of wisdom about his latest start, you know I click on over. His last start against Cleveland was outstanding. He goes into great length about re-discovering his split-fingered fastball. And believe me, my fantasy team is glad he did. He rocked.

But before expounding on that, he had some business to take care of.

First off two very important things to get out there.



Thank you to every man and woman serving in the Armed Forces of the United States. I thank God every day we live in a country founded on the principles and ethics that allow men and women like these people to live and WANT to serve here.



Second, Happy 10th Biirthday to my Daughter Gabby, and Happy 12th Birthday to my oldest son Gehrig!

The first part, I totally get. It was Memorial Day, after all, and that is a day to thank those who selflessly serve their country.

But the juxtaposition of this part,

live and WANT to serve here.

and this part

and Happy 12th Birthday to my oldest son Gehrig!

got me thinking.

See, it's not just his ridiculous sense of self-importance or his nickname of "red light" given for his love of the little red lights on TV cameras. It's not just his bible thumping mania or his hatred of the media members with out skill sets.

It's not this, which plastered my TV about 20 minutes after Curt was traded to the Sox for a pile of crap.



Or this, where he showed up at a Bruins game in a Bruins jersey and "Yankee Hater interlocking YH" hat (available at your local assholes-r-us) right after being traded and before he ever pitched in red, much less, bloody socks. Remember, this dude grew up in Arizona, went to high school and junior college there and pitched them to a World Championship before they shipped his annoying ass to Boston.

It's not that he wussed out on Capitol Hill in his testimony when it mattered and then hammered Barry Bonds because he felt like it.

Nope. The reason I hate the guy is that in
In 2004, he stumped for the Worst President Ever. Hot off his triumph over the Evil Empire, he went out and stumped for the biggest idiot without a village ever.

The Bush campaign immediately sensed a coup, shortly after Schilling closed his interview yesterday by telling GMA host Charles Gibson: "And make sure you tell everybody to vote, and vote Bush next week." The campaign posted Schilling's comments on its website and sent them out via blast e-mail to journalists all over the country.

The president called to thank Schilling, now a local hero after his two post-season performances in a bloody sock, covering a sutured ankle tendon that will require surgery to repair. Bush congratulated the pitcher and invited him to campaign with him today.

In fact, Curt even addressed this on 38Pitches, which is the only blog on the intertubes crappier than this one. Check out this rambling nonsense from a Q&A session.

Q-That being said, I have a bone to pick with you. I remember distinctly after the great ‘04 World Series win that you used the national publicity to campaign for George W. Bush’s presidential re-election bid.

A-Ok.

Q-We were told by the Bush Administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

A-Ok

Q-We were told by the Bush Administration that Iraq had connections to Al Quaeda and was partly responsible for 9-11.

A-Ok

Q-We were told by the Bush Administration that Iraq was attempting to build nuclear weapons.

A-Ok

Q-We were told by the Bush Administration that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the safety of the United States.

A-Ok

Q-We were told that we would be greeted as liberators.

A-I don’t remember this one but ok.
Q-All of the reasons used to justify invasion were untruths.
As a result of the US-led invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq, it is estimated that 600,000 Iraqis have been killed and over 3,200 Americans have been killed.

A-I was always of the opinion that any country harboring terrorists, and backing the murder of innocent men, women and children as well as having a government that imposed it’s will on people who chose to freely speak anti-government or differing religous viewpoints could not claim themselves a sovereign nation.

Q-As a Christian, do you regret your enthusiastic support for a man responsible for unjustified murder and bearing false witness? If you could go back in time, would you once again campaign for Bush?

A-No I don’t. I regret that thousands of Americans, and many other men and women from the NATO countries, as well as the hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children of Iraq have died as a result of the war. That I regret for anyone that’s had to pay that price. I also am proud as hell to know I live in a country that produces men and women who will travel around the world, because their government says so, to protect the freedoms and lives of people they don’t know. What other country on this planet has answered the call every single time since 1945? You can make claims that there are atrocities in Dafur and elsewhere that are more deserving and I am not sure you could argue against that in some cases, but the fact is that the U.S. took the baton after WWII to act as the worlds police force, when no one else could, or would, and has done so since then. Not perfectly and not without mistakes for sure, but we’ve done it. The U.S. could have fought a one front war in 1941 and ended the war in the pacific much sooner in my opinion, but we entered the european conflict for many reasons. Had we not done so we might be running around in a world where the primary language was German or Russian.

First of all, What the Fuck is he talking about? Second, what an asshole.

Self-promoting-A-hole, Johnny-come-lately-Yankee-Hater-And-Red-Sox-Nation-Darling AND right-wing-christian-Bush supporter? That moment is when I knew that Curt Schilling was the person that I hated most in the world. In the words of Marshall Mathers, he was put here on this earth to destroy me.

Given all that and Curt's ringing endorsement of the soldiers who WANT to fight and his son's 12th birthday note, I posted this on 38Pitches.com.

Alas, the moderator didn't approve of my sentiment. I only hope that it's because he didn't want Gehrig to feel like he had to live up to his Dad's incoherent notion of US foreign policy when we're still in Iraq in 6 years.

I know what you're thinking. Why, Fridge? Why spend your time consumed with hatred for a millionaire Everquest nerd? Why parse the words of an idiot? Did I mention that he's seriously considering running for office when he's done with baseball? That it might even be in '08 for Senate in Massachusetts??

He must be stopped. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Schilling...

Otter: Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: We're just the guys to do it.
D-Day: Let's do it.
Bluto: LET'S DO IT!

I'm just the guy to do it.

Here's the thing about whether or not Tinky Winky is gay...

... Does it really matter? Poland thinks so. One question that comes to mind, and is not addressed in this article, is what would they do if they decided he was gay. Would they ditch the show? Run polish language disclaimer "Warnsky! Giantski Purpleski Queerski!"? It's a ridiculous exercise in my opinion and those polish guys ought to just relax and go back to making kielbasa.

Besides no need to get a team of psychologists on it. I've got the info right here.

I have to admit that I've come to the conclusion after watching far too many episodes of the Teletubbies that Tinky Winky is in fact as gay as a purple alien with no genitals can be. And it wasn't the purse that clinched it for me. Hey, he's european. Those dudes do funny things. Nope, it was the one where there's a ballet tutu that appears in Tubby land. All the tubbys take turns wearing the skirts. The two with feminine voices, Po and Laa-Laa, dance around and enjoy themselves. But the clearest message is in the treatment of the masculine sounding Tinky Winky and his polar opposite Dipsy.
See, Dipsy is all man, baby. Just check out the erect phallic antenna the dude is sporting. And Dipsy wasn't having any part of that freakin' skirt. No way, no how. The pushy broad Laa-Laa chased his ass all over Tubby land telling him he had to put it on before he finally relented. He put it on, took that shit right off and bailed. Dipsy's got a rep to protect.

When it was Tinky-Winky's turn, it played a bit differently. He put down his purse and his Streisand albums, put that tutu on and got down with his bad self. He was immediately set free from the rigid constraints of gender boundaries and frolicked through Tubby land like it was raining men. In fact, when it was Po's turn to wear the skirt, Tinky wasn't giving it up. Now that he had been set free, he couldn't go back to his old life of ill-fitting maleness. Still, sharing is important and eventually he gave it up.

Face it, people. Tinky Winky's here. He's queer. Get used to it.

Disclaimer: Yes, I know far too much about the Teletubbies. But, in my defense, when my son was 6-18 months, he wouldn't sleep and was inconsolably cranky. We were told this was "colic-like", which is pediatrician-ese for "we don't have a clue". The one thing he liked most at 2AM when he was cranky was Teletubbies ("Tebbehtubbies" he would say"). He grew out of that phase and the Teletubbies. But my beef with the show wasn't Tinky Winky's obvious gayness. It was the fact that they speak baby-talk. How the hell is my boy gonna learn to talk from listening to a bunch of baby-talking aliens?

Well, luckily we've moved on to Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt, aside from being hetero, has perfect diction.

Quick Hits

In honor of Bagels and Jeans Friday. In which my tiny little company gives me great pleasure by buying bagels and allowing me to wear jeans and sneakers. I actually like going to work on Friday.

- It appears that Roger will pitch for Scranton next. Say hi to Michael Scott for me, Rog!

- This is the coolest wildlife video I've ever seen. It's a bit long, but you definitely learn one thing after a pride of lions has to take on some pissed off water buffaloes and 2 crocodiles. Pimpin' Ain't Easy for Lions.

- In an amazing juxtaposition. We have Da Guvernator and the nice, easy going, lady governor from my home state of CT kicking some administration ass because they are blocking their respective state's from taking on emmissions. So much for "state's rights".

- Here' is a cool combined interview with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelhof and Heroes creator Tim Kring. In it, I learned that they worked together on Crossing Jordan. Crossing Jordan? Seriously? I watched maybe two episodes of that show because of the smokin' hot Jill Hennessy. It sucked, no? Anyway, good interview.

- Torture Movies: I don't get it. This is a weird trend in movies for kids today. Saw 1-N, Hostel (and soon, Hostel II), Turistas, and most recently, Captivity has clogged up my TV with commercials (there are probably others). I don't get what's fun about it.

- Driving my kids to school, it occurred to me that my three year old son sings with my Dad's enthusiasm and skill. Which is to say a ton of the former, not so much of the latter. I missed my Dad's birthday yesterday! Happy Birthday, Dad!

- And because Toast isn't here, the rat bastid, a Poddery Barn.

1) K.D. Lang - "Tears of Love's Recall" Ingenue
I love me some KD. What a voice. Saw her at Radio City with Tony Bennett, two weeks after 9/11. Great show. Strange time in NY.

2) Rooney - "Sorry Sorry" Rooney
Sticky sweet power pop. I am slightly less manly than I was a moment ago for having listened to this song.

3) Mark Mothersbaugh - "Sharp Little Guy" Rushmore
Talk about feeling less manly. Short instrumental that's kinda alt-baroque.

4) White Stripes - "The Hardest Button To Button" Elephant

"Now we're a family
And we're alright now
We got some money and a little place
To fight now"

5) Ben Folds Five - "The Last Polka" Ben Folds Five

"He's a heap of junk that pours from his top drawer
He sometimes likes to spread it out around the floor
It's evidence of what he was like
He likes to remember when"

6) Snow Patrol - "Hands Open" Eyes Open
Their last album, "Final Straw" was really good. This one is merely pretty good.

7) Iron Maiden - "Judas Be My Guide" Fear of the Dark

"Fight wars - Die in a blaze of glory
Come home - Meat in a plastic sack"

Please vote against the supplemental, Dems.

8) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - "Complicated Situation" Howl
I recommend this album.

9) Outkast - "Rooster" Speakerboxx
This isn't the Hey Ya half of the duo. This is the other guy.

10) Cracker - "How Can I Live Without You" The Golden Age

"You can still come and bring me those fancy pastries
You can still come and crawl into my bed
You can live your life with whomever you please to
As long as someone takes good care of me"

11) Belle & Sebastian - "If She Wants Me" Dear Catastrophe Waitress
This is "Sunday Morning Coffee and Chillin'" Music.

12) Iron Maiden - "The Fallen Angel" Brave New World
This is NOT "Sunday Morning Coffee and Chillin'" music.

13) Beastie Boys - "Hold It Now, Hit It" Licensed to Ill
"What's the Time? It's time to buy Ale!" Perfect song to end a Friday poddery.

Yanks take Pavano out behind the shed...

... and shoot him.

He will be remembered as a true Yankee, along the lines of the Ed Whitsons, Danny Tartabulls and Denny Neagles that have honored the pinstripes.

What was your favorite Carl Pavano Moment? Was it the broken ribs from his car accident? The bone chips in his elbow? His bad back? The Charley Horse? The Butterflies in the Stomach? Was it when he dated Alyssa Milano as part of her never-ending quest to bed as many sports stars as possible?

If it were me, it would have to be his bruised buttocks. I feel safe in saying that Carl Pavano is the biggest bust in the history of baseball. Anyone disagree?

Goodbye, Carl. And let me say this from The Yankee Universe - may a pit bull take a crap in your favorite pair of sneakers every day for the rest of your life.

Happy Birthday, Princess!!!

Five Years Old Today!!!! Your daddy thinks that not only are you beautiful and smart, but you are one of the coolest chicks I've ever met. Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

I've found religion!

Or rather, I'm founding a religion. See, I went to lunch today at Hooters. And I was inspired to say "Grace" because I was truly, deeply thankful for Hooters today. Here is the prayer:

Oh Hallowed Hooters, please let me genuflect and stuff to worship the miracles you bestow upon my furrowed, sinusy, head-achen brow that has been in far too many meetings this week.

For thine is the excellent Magic Hat #9 in a frosted pint glass.
And thine are the mostly pretty darn good, but not great, buffalo wings.
And yes, 'Kellii' with a surprising number of i's in your name, we would like 70 wings, "hot and naked" as the holy menu describes, for that is how Saint Hooter intended.

True followers of thy glory spread your word that breading upon a chicken's wing is heresy and offered only for the pansy non-believers or unfortunate woman that enters your sacred ground.

Bless you Hooters for allowing me to bask in your woody glory, from your wood-paneled walls to your wooden tables and even your wooden plates. It cleanses my soul of the evil white formica/drywall-ness that plagues my cube and office. Blessed be your roll of paper towels at the middle of the table, for napkins and their many devilish folds perplex me and distract me from the beauty walking around me. And they don't look nearly as good tucked into my shirt collar.

Blessed be the holy trinity of mandatory Hooters Girl qualities: Bubbly personality, serene patience with goofy dorks like me and superior cleavage. For it is these godly qualities that are a soothing balm to the irritation left in my noggin. For the trials and tribulations of staring at text-editors with many varied colors of "courier new" font-ed letters are many.

Give us this day, our lunchtime beer.
And forgive us, its alcohol, which may slow our debugging,
As we forgive those who log duplicates in the defect database.
Lead us not into the temptation that our waitress thinks we're cool
But deliver us from giving a crap if she does or not.
For hers are the nice cans
And the hot wings
And the ice-freakin-cold drafts.
Now and forever.

Booyah!

Like most churches, mine will meet on Sundays. But only at local Hooters and only during Football season. I, of course, will be the Pope. Now accepting applications for Vice-Pope.

Founder of the Moral Majority

A lot has been said about the death of Jerry Falwell. I don't have much to add, but wanted to post this clip from the movie Airplane for the founder of the moral majority.

I Wanna Rock! ROCK!

Today, on the way to school, Twisted Sister's classic "I Wanna Rock" came on the radio. My kids perked up immediately. "Daddy! The Spongebob Song!" Yes, my little guys, the Spongebob Song. That's how they know it. You can see the finale of the fantastic(seriously) Spongebob movie below. They laughed, clapped and sang along. Rockin' Toddlers!



But before it was the Spongebob song, it was one of the greatest rock anthems of the 80's. And, I'd say one of the best videos of all time. My first concert ever was Twisted Sister opening for Iron Maiden. Your old Dad banged his then fourteen year old head and rocked the devil horns hard came home with ringing ears and a couple T-shirts I proudly wore to school the next day.



sidebar items:
- For my money, TS's best song was Burn In Hell.
- I'm both shocked and amused that Wikipedia has an entry for "devil horns". Seriously, Wikipedia is seriously approaching a real-life-non-portable version of "the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"

UPDATED: Good catch, Toast. It would be innappropriate for me to go to a concert at four years old. Fourteen is young enough for Maiden/TS.

Quick Hits

- This is a cool nugget about next year's Heroes on NBC from AintItCoolNews.com:

*NBC "bulks up" with 30 combined episodes of "Heroes" and "Heroes: Origins," an innovative new spin-off that each week will introduce a new character -- one of whom will be chosen by viewers through the "Heroes" website on NBC.com to become a cast regular the following season.

What a really cool idea. Probably the only way to make the coolest show on TV cooler and also avoid "CSI:Toledo" spinoff mania.

- Wanna take that torrent that you stole from "The Man" and play it on your TiVo connected TV? Go here! Just don't tell the MPAA I told ya. If you're curious, I'd say video Quality from a basic Divx rip you'll find online is indistinguishable from Digital Cable but not as good as DVD.

- LG Phillips is the first to develop Electronic Paper. Let me be the first to ask, "Why?"

- This is the Hottest. Web. Cam. Girl. Ever. UPDATED: THIS IS A JOKE VIDEO - I AM NOT A PERV...




- When I was in college, I listened to this song and the album it's from so often that I'm pretty sure my brothers at the fraternity wanted to drown me in Old Milwaukee. The song? Here's Where The Story Ends the Band? The Sundays. The album? Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

- Uh, this just in: Leonard Nimoy likes big butts and he cannot lie. No other vulcan can deny... Actually, that's a vast simplification of the link, but it's definitely the "Wait... Wha?" link of the week.

My wife used to date...

...this guy. And yes, he's working on a human powered flying device. In fact, he was working on it ten years ago when they dated.

I once had the opportunity to discuss with this guy his plans to fly under his own power. Being a Mechanical Engineer by way of education, I was quite interested in his designs and spent a long time drawing him out and encouraging him to share. He even stood up on a chair and flapped his "wings" for us to show how he might hover in place like a hummingbird. He's a crazy person. Literally crazy. Somehow, my wife made it to the third date before realizing this. nice job, hon.

This is a link to a quicktime file of his flight attempt in 2003 at the Birdman challenge in the UK. Words cannot do it justice.

He also mentioned, during our engineering heart to heart, that he had perfected the skill of refreshing food in the microwave. He said that he could take a cheeseburger that's been in the back of his car for a while and microwave it so that you couldn't tell that it was a few days old. I'm sure he could...

Clearly, once she hit rock bottom with this guy, I started to look pretty good to her...

Acrophobics! Check This Out!

This swing is on an 1100 foot high tower. It would take approximately 14 beers for me to imbibe enough alcohol courage to swing on this mofo. And even then, look out below!

Worst. Announcer. Ever. (Examples)

When I posted that Suzyn Waldman was the worst announcer ever, my buddy Manny objected. "C'mon!", he said. "She's not THAT bad. Besides, I think she's kinda hot." Ok, I made that last sentence up. No one thinks she's hot.

So, I told Manny that I would chronicle her broadcasting shortcomings here. You see, my dream is that buzzingfridge makes the world a better place. More specifically, I hope it makes my world a better place. I'll start by fixing the Yankee radio broadcasts.

On my way to Jersey Mike's to grab some lunch and come back to the office, I of course turned on the WCBS 880 broadcast of today's Yankee day game. Please note, that round-trip total travel time to and from the sub shop is approximately 8-10 minutes. In this small sample, I heard these two doozies.

Example #1
Context: Discussing the Brad Wilkerson, who last night hit a homer off Mike Mussina.
Suzyn Says: "They had high hopes for Wilkerson when they traded Soriano for him. They were hoping he'd be a gritty, gutty, Laynce Nix-type player."
Why this is stupid:Interesting, because Nix was on the Rangers, too. In fact, they traded for Wilkerson, gave him Laynce Nix's position in center field, benched Nix and then traded him to Milwaukee. It's safe to assume that they were hoping for Wilkerson to be a BETTER player than Laynce Nix. In fact, he has been better if only because Laynce Nix sucks.

Example #2
Context: Discussing the Rangers team hitting woes.
Suzyn Says: "You can't expect them to stay like this. They'll be better than this. They have too many people on this team."
Why this is stupid:In fact, they have exactly the same number of people as every other team in the major leagues. There are rules about such things. Stupid.

And before you jump on me and say, "Well, she meant they have too many good hitters." She's paid to talk. This is not Bush saying "Misunderestimate" and it's ok because he's leading our righteous crusade against Islamofascists or Kate Winslet accidentally saying that Cameron Diaz "can literally eat her under a table" and it's ok because she got naked in Titanic. This isn't the charming eccentricity of Scooter Rizzuto ("Oh, you huckleberry!"). She's supposed to be a professional broadcaster. When she says things that are stupid, it's just annoying. And doubly so because she sounds like Fozzie Frickin' Bear.

Ten minutes in the car, 1 inning, two really stupid comments.

Movie Review - The Fountain

Some movies you want to grade on a curve. Is it fair to grade a movie like Bad Boys II on the same scale that you grade the 40 year old Virgin? Furthermore, what scale do you use to grade a movie that is attempting to be sci-fi-existential-visual-poetry? Because that's what we have here, folks. Darren Aronofsky, who was a critical darling when he helmed Pi and Requiem For A Dream, got pretty much hammered when this one came out. Words like "ponderous", "pretentious" and "mess" were bandied about by movie critics who Curt Schilling would tell you have skill sets that are non-existent. How do you resolve the disparity between the ambition of The Fountain when compared to the low-hanging fruit of the popcorn movie?

We all have different answers to that question, directly related to how we feel about the movies in general. If you reject pretense and ambition as "artsy-fartsy", then stop reading now and move on to the next thing in your RSS feed.

Glad we've gotten past that.

The title The Fountain alludes to mythical 'Fountain of Youth' and the film addresses the notions of mortality and its opposite, immortality. The basic plot of the film revolves around a medical researcher (Hugh Jackman) and his dying wife (Rachel Wiesz). He's desperately searching for a cure for her cancer and death itself. She's trying to finish a novel about a 1500's era search for the fountain of youth as a mechanism for coping with her oncoming death. Neither of them quite reach those goals and that leads us to the third era explored the movie, a futuristic journey to a dying star. The climax of the film brings it all together and explores not the meaning of life, but the meaning of death.

That's what Aronofsky attempted in 96 minutes. That is not your rainy-matinee-popcorn movie. Does it work? Almost. Like most expressionist forays it swerves between being obscure and obvious. It's a bit slow paced. Hugh Jackman hams it up a bit, but at least he really puts it out there. And if you're the kind of person that tightly clings to every piece of the puzzle in hopes that they'll all fit together nicely by the time the credits roll, you will surely be disappointed in the ending. Those are the negatives.

But there's more good than bad here and I recommend that people watch this movie. It's visually striking. I found the story very engrossing and was very intrigued by the themes that were presented. It's not perfect, but it's perfectly memorable.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 possible couches.

Movie Review - Ghost Rider

Nicolas Cage is a big comic fan. Bigger certainly than I am. He's desperately wanted in on every comic movie of the last 15 years. He finally got one in Ghost Rider. I was a big fan of this comic as a kid. It was a very dark story. Two bit stunt guy sells his soul to the devil and as payment, he must bond with a demon and bring justice to evildoers. That ain't no radioactive spider. I really enjoyed it and was kinda psyched that they were making the movie.

Unfortunately, I had a Nicolas Cage ban in place. See, I don't watch Nicolas Cage movies. I have a number of reasons for this, most of them relating to the fact that he sucks. But, I lifted it so that I could see that bitchin' flaming skull ride a flaming chopper and kick some bad guy ass.

Put simply: the movie didn't work for me. For one, I always find Nicolas Cage distracting. For one, he's a bit too old to play Johnny Blaze and he's way too old to be one half of a pair of teen lovers, torn apart by fate, at least when the other half is Eva Mendes. Somehow, her character aged 10 years and his aged 30. Peter Fonda mails in a performance as Mephistopheles. The kid who cries at the site of a plastic bag in American Beauty is pretty uninteresting as an Emo-Devil-Teen. Somehow, there are some other young, annoying inexplicably elemental based demons in Emo-Devil-Teens posse. The aforementioned, Eva Mendes's hooters put forth a bravura performance. Unfortunately the rest of her attended the Anna Nicole Smith Online Acting Academy. There's a dumb plotline with Sam Elliot where he turns out to be an older Ghost Rider, like from Cowboy times and yet still alive. In the most frustrating moment of the movie, he saddles up on a sweet skeleton horse, rides side by side with Ghost Rider to his final showdown with Emo-Devil-Teen. Rather than join in the ass-kicking, he says, "I could only turn into Ghost Rider one more time, and I was saving it for this." and then turns around and rides home. WTF? Noone put down their nonfat venti Latte's in the script review meeting and said that was completely lame? Hollywood douchebags.

All this brings me to Mark Steven Johnson. He's the writer-director that brought us the failed epic Daredevil and now Ghost Rider. Inexplicably, Marvel looked at the results of the Daredevil movie and said, "more please!" and got Mark to do Ghost Rider. You seem like a nice guy, Mark. Stay the fuck away from my favorite comics, please. You are simply lousy at making them into movies. The changes you make are wrong and dilute what's good about each character. You are especially bad at creating villains, which are the true key to any great heroic epic.

I hereby declare that you are forbidden from making any of the following movies from Comic Books:
- Captain America
- Deathlok (I am so ready to write the script for this one. Would be a great movie.)
- Power Man and Iron Fist (easily the dumbest comic that I loved as a kid)
- Doctor Strange (they made a terrible made for TV movie once that was still better than the live action Spider Man tv show)
- Nick Fury
- The Avengers
You are, however, free to hack apart these doozies from the Marvel Collection.
- Nova (Bland)
- Namor (Dude looked like Spock in a speedo with little wings on his ankles)
- Dazzler (A Disco heroine!)
- Alpha Flight (Eventually led to the first openly gay superhero, Northstar.)

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 possible couches.

Curt Schilling Sucks... No really. He sucks a lot.

Jesus-Fucking-Imaginary-Christ! Can this guy just shut the hell up and play ball? Clearly not.

On the WEEI’s "Dennis and Callahan" radio show, Schilling was asked if fans should "hold their noses" while watching Bonds’s pursuit of the all-time record. Bonds is 11 from tying the all-time record of 755.

“Oh yeah. I would think so. I mean, he admitted that he used steroids,” said Schilling, according to the Globe. “I mean, there’s no gray area. He admitted to cheating on his wife, cheating on his taxes, and cheating on the game, so I think the reaction around the league, the game, being what it is, in the case of what people think. Hank Aaron not being there. The commissioner [Bud Selig] trying to figure out where to be. It’s sad.

“And I don’t care that he’s black, or green, or purple, or yellow, or whatever. It’s unfortunate . . . there’s good people and bad people. It’s unfortunate that it’s happening the way it’s happening.”

Oh Really? Curt? You feel the need to inject your bloated ego into THIS, too? It's not enough that this steroid scandal has plagued baseball and dominated discussion for years such that I am so fucking tired of hearing the words "steroid" that I want to punch the face of any one who says it (noted exception: My doctor when he hands me samples of Nasonex - my allergies are much better and, ladies, let me know if you need two tickets to the gun show).

Curt. Please. read. this. closely. No one cares what you think. Nobody wants to hear you moralizing about this issue to your loving Red Sox fan faithful on Boston talk radio. This is especially true as you had many other teammates (Lenny Dykstra and Darren Daulton, for example) who have been linked to steroid use and yet receive no such rebuke from Saint Curt. When the same game you've used to make your living has been known to be littered with stimulants, which also need to be considered "performance enhancing" and could potentially help a certain 40 yr old fat pitchers get up for a day game after getting in late to the team hotel. When you, yourself have been publicly reticent to adopt testing? You're unbelievable.

Screw you, you sanctimonious idiot! Hammering Bonds, which he certainly deserves, is easy talk-radio fodder and just another example of how you pimp your self at ever opportunity. For the love of God, please stuff that bloody sock in your mouth.

Now would be a really good time to stop...

... YouTube parodies of Mac Vs. PC commercials. In fact, lets stop the original Mac vs. PC commercials on TV while we're at it. They were clever in the beginning and like most things Apple, very creative. Now, they're just pedantic, smarmy and tedious. And look what else they've done. They've filled up my goshdarn internets with even more tedious parodies.

At first, the parodies were clever, like this one pitting PS3 vs. the Wii


Then, the advertisements invaded the OS wars. Normally, the front lines were message boards where nerds battled for supremacy. Now, YouTube! Mac, PC and Linux - sponsored by Novell. Still moderately entertaining...


Then the home video geeks got in the act. I'm pretty sure you need to be a level 47 Paladin to think this one's funny.


Clearly the saddest example of all, here's a 40 year old dude in his mom's basement acting out Marvel Comics vs. DC Comics with his action figures in front of a sheet.


Lastly, from GodTube, Christian vs. Christ Follower. Which is kinda like Potato versus Potato, no? I guess not.

Don't quite get that one, but if those dudes want to fight it out up until they get called back to heaven, I have no problem.

Obviously, this clever campaign has run its course. Where my TiVo remote used to stop and rewind to the beginning of these commericals, I now speed past them with thumbs of disdain. Please, Apple. When the iPhone comes out in June, can we ditch these Ads? I am begging you on behalf of the intertubes.

Worst. Announcer. Ever.

Wanna listen to one of the most awful sounds I've ever heard in my life? Here's Suzyn Waldman calling the announcement of the return of Roger Clemens.

Just listen to the beginning and you'll see that Waldman is the worst radio announcer I've ever heard. It's not just that her voice is ridiculous, which you can hear in the beginning of the clip. She's a vapid moron. For proof of that, you'll need to be trapped in a car on a long, long trip, far away from your TV and stuck listening to her color commentary. Worst Ever.

The Prodigal Cy Returns

I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to like Roger Clemens. When the Yankees traded for him in 1999, sending David Wells, Graeme Lloyd and Homer Bush to Toronto for a man who was 36 and had won 5 Cy Young Awards, I had been trained for years to despise him. Clemens had just spent 15 years pitching in the same division as my beloved Yankees. He had beaten them countless times. He glared menacingly at opposing hitters. He yelled at umpires. He pitched up and in at my guys seemingly on a whim and certainly at a rate we did not deserve. And worst of all, in 1986 he dared to win the MVP award as a pitcher over my beloved Don Mattingly. Mattingly hit a Pujolsian .352 that year and played a sterling Gold Glove defense for 162 games. Clemens missed two starts and played in only 33 games. How can he be the MVP? It was a travesty! How could I root for a guy who was such a big jerk and completely jobbed my most favoritest Yankee ever for an MVP award? Impossible.

So, I resigned myself to watching the Yankees in 1999 and trying not to think about the fact that Clemens was pitching for my team. It really was a serious test of the Seinfeld joke that all sports fans do is "root for laundry". The cognitive dissonance I experienced was difficult to deal with. Apparently it was for Roger, too, as his ERA jumped nearly two points in 1999. I went into the off-season thinking, "Great, the Yanks got Clemens just in time for the old-and-broken down years. I get to watch him suck for my team instead of enjoying his downfall as I should rightfully be allowed to."

The 2000 season came and many thought that the amazing run of the 1990s was probably over. The Yanks had just beaten the Braves again to win the World Series, but the team was another year older and certainly would begin to break down. And seriously, who wins three WS in a row? There was a lot of talk that Clemens was a hanger-on in the 1999 WS and didn't deserve the ring that he got. He was, after all, the 4th worst pitcher on the 1999 team and was the first prominent Yankee player to get the "He's not a *real* Yankee" treatment. This logic would later be applied to Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and most effectively to Alex Rodriguez. The 2000 season would be the season where Clemens would put to rest any of that talk. Moreover, the 2000 season would be the season where Clemens would finally win me over.

The 2000 Roger Clemens was far more effective than the 1999 Roger Clemens. While Pettitte would lead the team in wins in his typically gritty, more-hits-than-innings-but-grinding-it-out-anyway style, Clemens was the Ace of the staff. In 1999, that was David Cone's job, but he completely fell apart in 2000. We'd later find out that he had a shoulder aneurysm that would end a fantastic career. Clemens took the ball in his turn and provided the kind of pitching you need from an ace. That was what you expected though from him. Certainly I'm not shallow enough that one year of decent starts and I'm Roger Clemens' love slave? Not quite.

The moment that he became a Yankee, at least in my opinion, was during the inter-league play with the Mets that year. Since it had almost occurred the year before, many people went into the season hoping for a real Subway series between the Mets and the Yankees. There was a lot of energy in the head to head matchups. There was even more energy after Roger Clemens hit Piazza in the head at Yankee Stadium.

The world exploded. Or at least, you'd have thought so if you listened to WFAN in NYC, specifically Fatso and Fruit Loops.

New York was at War! The glaring perennial Cy Young award winner had ruthlessly plunked Mike Piazza, who before then was best known to that point for 1) being the best hitting catcher of my lifetime (Sorry Johnny Bench) and generally a nice guy. 2) having killer sideburns. 3) being Tommy LaSorda's nephew and 4) controversial sexual orientation.

Piazza later put the #4 to rest by marrying a playboy playmate (seen at right) and baywatch beauty. But, the Clemens Piazza beaning dominated the NY sports summer that year. The rabid Mets Fans were ready to nail Roger to that stupid red apple in the outfield in Shea. And in defending the Yankees and Clemens from these foaming-at-the mouth-nutjobs that I began to grow to like him. It's that old "family" phenomenon. I can hammer Clemens, but you bastards can't because he's a Yankee. That was it. He was a Yankee. Yankee fans circled the wagons and flipped the collective bird to those whiny Met fans. Later that summer, the Yankees played at Shea and Green Tea Joe gerry-rigged the rotation so Rog wouldn't have to get beaned during every at-bat for the shocking transgression of hitting St. Piazza, patron saint of ambiguous sexual orientation. Other Yankees were hit, benches were cleared and golf tips were exchanged by disinterested players in the media-created melee that kinda-sorta ensued. Boy, those Mets are such tough guys!

That October, in a Hollywood like turn of events, the forces that be decided that more Clemens-Piazza hype was required. So they conspired to allow the Mets to join the Yankees in the World Series. Once again, Green Tea protected Roger by assuring that he'd not have to pitch at Shea by holding . Mets fans are kinda loony and are capable of doing anything to exact their revenge, from high powered rifles to Magic Loogies. After a matchup of gutty left handers in game one, Clemens took the mound in Game 2. The world held it's breath. What would happen when Clemens pitched to Piazza? Would he hit him again? He sawed off Piazza's bat on a foul ball and the barrel came rolling out to Clemens. Clemens, being prone to getting over-excited for big games, shockingly picked up the barrel of the bat and threw it toward the dugout. Piazza was jogging up the first base line on the foul ball and just about everyone wondered, "Did RC just throw that at him?" Even Piazza would admit that later he thought to himself, "Is this guy crazy?" I say no, that he was tossing the bat away in a kind of "Get this crap outta here!" manner. But it sure was weird. I loved it. The dude didn't obsequiously bow to the "Do Piazza No Harm" hype. He didn't pitch around the dude and worry about going inside! He went after Piazza, the Mets and absolutely dominated them for eight innings. After that, He was A-Ok in my book.

He'd go on to win another Cy with the Yanks the next year and pitch well for 2 years after that. Then came a retirement, three years in Houston and another Cy Young - 7 in all or nearly 1 every 3 years he's played. Unbelievable.

How will he do? Well, he probably won't pitch to an ERA in the 2-point-somethings that he's had in Houston. So, how much shall we discount that? I'm gonna give him 3.75 and 12 wins. More importantly he can provide stabilization to the most unstable MLB rotation in 2007, possibly ever. Please also note that he has been particularly dominant in the last two years. These years are different from the rest of his career because they are the first two of the short seasons that he's had. It's entirely possible that at 44 he's better suited to a short season than the full length season. It's also entirely possible that this is the season that his body says, "Enough of this, I'm going the way of Carl Pavano". It's unlikely though. With Roger Clemens, the Yankees have the potential to have as good or better a starting staff as any team in baseball - Clemens, Wang, Mussina, Pettitte and later, Phil Hughes. That includes the one that has Mr. 38Pitches.com, who has a very entertaining and rambling account about how they don't need the greatest pitcher who ever lived and even if they did, he wouldn't say so. Glad to have you back, Rog!

Movie Review - Spiderman 3

See, here's the thing. I had already decided to take the day off for the sake of my mental state, I had dropped my kids at day care and had a nice fresh Dunkin Donuts Hazelnut in my hand. It was 8:45. Did you know that they have 9:15AM shows of Spiderman? Me neither until yesterday. I must also say that I dressed up as Spiderman for halloween several times and when I was a kid, had memorized 100 issues of his comics.

All this blather is my way of rationalizing being one of the few people geeky enough to have seen this movie by lunch time today. I am truly ashamed.

It was..... good?

I so wanted to love this movie. I drank up the hype for 1 and 2 and loved the movies just the same when they came out. I wanted this one to take it's rightful place a one of the three greatest superhero movies ever (1 and 2 being the other two). It doesn't.

In the end, they simply bit off more than they could chew in one movie. They packed too many story arcs and didn't do any of them justice in the breakneck-paced 140 minutes. I wonder if the Venom storyline makes any sense to someone who's unfamiliar with it? It barely made sense to me. There are simply so many moving parts, albeit visually stunning moving parts, that the movie is more of a blur before your eyes than the roller coaster ride it should be.

And one beef. Wussy Emo haircut and eyeliner for Peter Parker? Just terrible. One good tidbit. Best role for Bruce Cambpell yet in a Spiderman movie.

Overall, it is still freakin' Spiderman. And Spiderman movie is like sex. Even poorly executed with confusing twists and turns and a somewhat disappointing finale, it's worth 3.5 couches.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 possible couches.

Please shoot me now...

We can all think back and recall how fucked up the 2000 presidential election was. It was it's own animal, filled with all kinds of bitter feelings on one side and sleazy machinations and in-you-face celebrations on the other. Let's put that election aside for a moment and talk about 2004.

I'm a smart guy. I was in the gifted and talented program as a kid. I skipped the third grade. I have a high IQ and probably haven't knocked too many points off it through the thousands of beers I've drunk in my life, or the many times in college that I skipped class entirely, opting instead for "Bridge and Bong Hits". I even managed to get a couple degrees in the process.

What I'm trying to say here is that there's a lot of stuff in this world that I understand. However, there's one thing that I definitely will never understand. And when I say never, I mean never, ever, fucking ever.

I will go to my grave never understanding how the people of the U.S. in 2004 looked at this complete idiot and said to themselves, "Yep. I want me 4 more years of that!" I would have voted for Richard Nixon's corpse before pulling a lever for that man.

This will always remain the greatest mystery of my lifetime.

38pitches.com puts 38pimpslaps on Gary Thorne and pimps the baby Jesus

I know it's a few days old, and the freshness seal has definitely been cracked on this one, but here's my blow-by-blow breakdown of Curt Schilling's Blogger response to the "painted sock controversy"

Let's get ready to ruuuuummmmmbbbbblllllleeee!!!

Curt starts off huffy.

Take Gary Thorne, John, Jack Joe or whatever his first name is, Heyman, Karen Vescey, Woody Paige, CHB, Jay Marriotti, Bill Plaschke, and a host of other people that litter the media landscape, and put them all on an island somewhere.

Yeah, I hear Turks and Caicos is nice.

Instead of using the forums they participate in to do something truly different, change lives, inspire people, you have an entire subset of media whose sole purpose in life is to actually be the news, instead of report it. They have little to no talent at what they do and other than a mastery of the English language their skill sets are non-existent.

Got that media bitchez? Curt lifts people up with this bloody socks and crappy blog (not nearly as crappy as this blog, but still). Besides your skill sets are non-existent. And you certainly don't have the balls to throw a 3-2 changeup.

It was blood. You can choose to believe whatever you need to, but facts are facts. The 25 guys that were in that locker room, the coaches, they all know it. In the end nothing else really matters. The people that need to believe otherwise are people with their own insecurities and issues.

Here, Curt is speaking directly to me. It is completely true that due to my own issues and insecurities, I gleefully wallow in his dismay. In fact, I considered printing out this blog entry and rubbing the printed words all over my body. But, I was too afraid of paper cuts. See? Curt's so right about my insecurities. I am, however, not an Everquest Nerd.

The only problem I have is this. If you look back, from the day of game six in the ALCS, through today, you won’t find a newspaper article, radio or TV interview in which I offered the blood, the sock, the game, any of it, as a topic.

Again, Curt nails this. He made the humble, self-deprecating decision not to call a press-conference to promote his bloodiness. The fact that, for the next few months, he accepted every interview request ranging from the writers he slammed above to pimply faced teens with betamax cameras and a "TV Production 1" project due? Completely Irrelevant!

When I walked into the room for the post game interviews and offered up my first response to the questions about the game I basically said that the night was a revelation for me. That my faith in God that evening showed me things I’d never believed.

As I uttered those words I could see pretty much every person in that room roll their eyes and smirk. That’s not what any of them wanted to hear, truth or not. That was not good copy.

You're right. No one wants to hear about your looney superstitions. But, wait a minute.... Stigmata? Might the baby jesus have bit Curt in the ankle?

I’m still convinced that the sock from game 6 of the ALCS is in someone that works in the Yankee clubhouses home.

An incredibly awkward sentence aside, what Curt is saying is that some NYC bastard has his beloved bloody sock. This is a level of stalkerdom, only possible for commenters on 38pitches.com like this guy.

Remember this, the surgery was voluntary. If you have the nuts, or the guts, grab an orthopedic surgeon, have them suture your ankle skin down to the tissue covering the bone in your ankle joint, then walk around for 4 hours. After that go find a mound, throw a hundred or so pitches, run over, cover first a few times. When you’re done check that ankle and see if it bleeds. It will. There was less visible blood in game two because we recognized the amount of bleeding from the first game and Doctor Morgan put extra covering to stop the blood from running to the bottom of my shoe as it did the first game.

Did I mention that I am Curt Fucking Schilling? Did I mention that I'm completely badass in a Charles Bronson in a Death Wish 1 and 2 kind of way and not Death Wish 3 which was pretty lame and definitely not 4, which sucked? Did I mention that I piss lightning and crap thunder? (or is it the other way around?) Did I mention that all your skill sets are non-existent? And all your base are belong to us?

The saddest part in all of this is the following. Yesterday, as I was warming up for the game, I got to see a young kid, could not have been more than 20, who had served in Iraq. He was being honored by the Orioles and threw out the first pitch. He was a double amputee who’d lost the lower portion of both of his legs serving his country. He refused to use his cane and getting to see him do that was incredible.

Instead of finding this kid and writing a story that truly matters, something that would and could truly inspire people, the media chose to focus on a story that was over two years old and a completely fabricated lie. What a job.

I am Curt Schilling. After I kick your ass, I will wrap my loving arms around you. I will heal your wounds (not the double amputee, mind you, that's too hard). I will teach you to be good and humble like me. I will make you feel safe and warm. You don't deserve it because your skill-sets are non-existent, but baby Jesus said I have to.

Quick Hits

- Ok, pitching nerds. Both of you, listen up! I know you want freeze frame dissections of pitching mechanics. You know you want it! I gives it to ya. Here's Phil Hughes from his first outing at Yankee Stadium compared to the futures game. Here's the sublime Tim Lincecum, who's Bugs Bunny-esque pitches have brought out in me a severe man-crush. And last, here's the broken-down shell of a pitcher, Mark Prior. Mark, as a fantasy owner, you broke my heart. But, we'll always have 2003.

- You have to click on this link (reg req'd) if you want to read the following passage:

Gazing at the enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before.

“So what does the female look like?” she said. “Obviously you can’t have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car.”

and then later,

Dr. Brennan realized that scientists had made this argument without looking at the female birds. Perhaps, she wondered, the two sexes were coevolving, with elaborate lower oviducts driving the evolution of long phalluses.

Oh, those cheeky oviducts! and lastly,

“The correlation was incredibly tight,” Dr. Brennan said.

In the words of Michael Scott, "That's what she said!"

Spoiler: She's talking about Ducks and they apparently have big feathery johnsons. There's a lot of scientifical gobbledygook about evolving phalluses, etc. Certainly Charlie from GodTube could set these dudes straight about duck weeners. God loves big duck wangs, people! 'Nuff said!

- This article from my local paper starts out like an article for the Onion: Clasic Rock deemed too Classic!

"It could be a tolerable format if they dug a bit deeper. (Come on, guys! Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded more than three songs!)"

"I wouldn't mind hearing [Jethro Tull's] `Aqualung' every couple of years, but I don't want to hear it every day," said Robert Cromack, 52, of Hartland.

Novel Idea: Buy a freakin' CD, Grandpa! Skip the second half of the article, it gets boring and factual.

- If I ever front a band, I hope it's called "Big Feathery Johnsons"

- Jimmy Kimmel's unnecessary censorship.

All you people are Vampires!

Please help me. I can't stop listening to Arctic Monkeys. Whatever they say I am, That's what I am not. Is true genius. They could have aptly called it "Thirteen songs that say Fuck You!" Does it matter that I had mastered drinking beer from a funnel before these kids were born? Hell no. This is a near perfect record.

The latest, Favourite Worst Nightmare, is nearly as good, but lacking a bit in terms of catchy hooks and memorable lyrics. Still, it's better than 99% of the stuff I've heard this year.

The two albums will remain iPod MVPs in heavy rotation at least until Chris Cornell's solo album is released....

sidebar: Mr. Cornell is definitely testing my statement that "I would pay to listen to him sing the phone book". Apparently, the rumors of the Michael Jackson Cover - Billie Jean - are true. My MJ fave is Rock With You.