Our story so far:

In the 2004 ALCS, Boston, in the process of digging themselves out of a 3-0 hole, faces their hated rivals at Yankee Stadium in game 6 with a depleted pitching staff.  Fresh out of surgery, Curt Schilling takes the mound and delivers a dominating, gutty performance.  In mid-game, what appears to be a fresh bloodstain is noticed on Schilling’s sock in the area of his recent surgery.  Sports Journalists being what they are, nary another minute would pass without mention of the open wound and a close-up.  By the end of the game a radio listener had to have been left wondering if Schilling wasn’t just hobbling around out there on a bloody stump.  But I digress

Now catcher Doug Mirabelli has suggested that the whole matter was a hoax and that Schilling had painted the spot on his sock as a publicity stunt.

OK, in a vacuum, Schilling’s name certainly belongs on any short list of players who would pull something like this.  But I’m not buying Mirabelli’s story. (more…)

This past week Brady Quinn was on every TV show there is except TBS’ Seinfeld reruns.  And for all that campaigning … please help him, he’s falling.

No surprise that he wasn’t #1.  The Raiders were pretty sure to go with JaMarcus Russell.  And subsequent teams had bigger needs, such as Detroit’s need to secure one of the top 5 picks each year and then use it on a WR.  But hey, it’s worked well for them so far, so who am I to question Matt Millen?

The big surprise came when Miami, who has no QB at all save for the world-famous Cleo Lemon, took a pass on Quinn.  Oh, snap! and all that other stuff.

Currently the list of teams that Quinn will have it in for when he finally takes to the field numbers 14.  Pittsburgh is on the clock without much need for a marquis QB.  Then comes Green Bay.  Could the 2007 season see two highly-touted QB’s, Quinn and Aaron Rogers, wishing that Brett Favre would retire already!?

If he slides past Green Bay it could be a much longer fall.  Now we are into last year’s playoff teams and teams that do well, you know, tend to already have a decent QB.

I watched the Democratic Debate last night.  You know, kind of like being unable to look away from an awful train wreck.  It’s a little early, but still many precious moments to be had.

Can’t wait to turn up the heat!  One unfortunate by-product of this process starting so early is how it waters down event such as this.  Of course, without Al Sharpton in the mix, perhaps the potential for fireworks is minimal.  Anyway.  Right the candidates don’t even pretend to try to answer the question they are asked.  They don’t attempt to distinguish themselves from each other – only from George Bush.  LIke there was any voter confusion on that front.  And for the most part they don’t go after each other.

The Lunatic from Alaska.  Who is this guy from Alaska?  Kucinich thinks he’s out in left field, and John McCain thinks he’s a little unbalanced.  Dude, it’s ok to answer a question without a “who the hell …” or “what the hell …”.  I was however, delighted to learn from him that we have no enemies (in response to the question, “Outside of Iraq, who are our three biggest enemies?”)

Even God thinks that’s a busy day.  (more…)

Dell responds to customer feedback by bringing back Windows XP … and it only took them two months to figure out what they really should have known all along.
As exciting and eagerly-anticipated as the new Windows version may be, most don’t want to be on the front line of the transition.  Play with it at CompUSA.  Let some other dumb-ass flash his laptop on day 1 of the release … wait and be content to get your work done while others help Microsoft root out their bugs.  Call me when SP 2 is out.
And this isn’t just Dell btw … two months ago we were on the road and needed to pick up an XP Pro machine toot-sweet.  Couldn’t do it.  Everyone was letting their XP machine inventory run down in anticipation of Vista.  Sorry CompUSA, and Circuit City, and BestBuy … I confused you with organizations that are in the technology business and pretend to know their cutomers.

Talk about pandering … Bravo was on point last night with their airing of “Bowling for Columbine.”  At least I assume that was the flick.  I saw it just long enough to note a scruffy beard, the signature circular logic, and that the subject was gun control.

Turns out the VT tragedy was not a moment to soon seeing how the “Inconvenient Truth” movement was pretty well spent.  If events can just cycle like that, frequently enough to keep either Al Gore or Michael Moore on point at any given moment, the left will be in hog (no pun intended) heaven.

So, two nights ago, the VT killer’s multi-media “manifesto” flooded the airwaves.  Then last night, big debates over whether that was too soon.  Of course on each network the issue was all the other networks … and a broad spectrum of journalist found fault with each other.
The apologists were nauseating.  For people who are supposed to be informed these guys have somehow escaped noticing that the public doesn’t give a rip about 3/4 of what they have to say.  They just argue on about their duty to service the public’s right to know, and the public’s right to see a grieving parent cry?
Yeah … like being a journalist gives you carte blanch to be an obnoxious, arrogant, prick.

Interesting lawsuit in the works.  A Chinese dissident who was prisoned and beaten for expressing his political views online, is suing Yahoo! for providing the Chinese government information which led to his arrest.  Stand by for a possible backlash against Yahoo! here.

What really bothers me about cases like this is that they contribute to the public’s wishy-washiness, to their tendancy to change ethical stances based on a particular situation.

The problem is, an issue like this puts two components of our ideology at odds with each other.  On the one hand we recognize an accountability to the law of the land.  On the other we stand for liberty and freedom from oppression.  Unfortunately, that second one is more emotional and for many, it will confuse the basics of what has happened here.

A guy broke the law.  (more…)

Unthinkable.  Senseless.  Tragic.  Nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said on that front. 

Here’s the thing.  Somewhere in a dark dorm room at Ohio State, or Arizona, or Stanford, or wherever, there is a troubled kid, sitting alone thinking, “That was pretty cool, but I bet I can do 50.”

How many times have we seen the tremendous horror that can be inflicted by a lunatic unconcerned with their own survival, and still there is a clamoring for legislative fixes as though somehow this could have been avoided with a few simple rules.

Once again last night, in their coverage of the VT shootings, the media proved … oh, what to say, … how little substance they truly have to offer?  how, when faced with a single, slowly-developing story, they can’t help but resort to cheap tactics in efforts to manufacture additional details?  what a bunch of imbeciles they are!  That’s it.

First there was the incessant badgering of police and university officials with questions that were not questions, but accusations.  “So, you’re telling us that immediately after the dorm room shooting you DIDN’T take to the streets handing out bullet-proof vests.”  “You mean to say, that given two hours you were unable to erect a barbed-wire fence around every building on campus and install metal detectors at all entrances.”  “Besides investigating a double-homicide, what WERE you doing with all that time!”  Sorry, but I can totally understand the response.  When is the last time a mass-shooting followed a couple of hours after something that looked like a greivance between individuals gone wrong?

Then FOX brought on a firearms expert to shed some light on the story.  No kidding, the lead in went something like, “We still don’t know what kind of weapons were used so I brought along a couple of pieces as examples.”  In other words, “This is what a gun looks like.”  Thanks for adding all that texture to the story! (more…)

TIme to catch up on the most surprising, hard to believe season of NBC’s Apprentice yet, as in … hard to believe this season could be even worse than season 5.  I’m surprised!  But, it’s the only Apprentice I’ve got, so here goes.

Small Pond.  Continuing a trend, one main root of this season’s weakness has been an uninspiring pool of candidates.  This was most obvious in Tim and Nicole’s romantic relationship.  It seemed that at each key moment the two could be found in a corner playing footsie.  Nicole was able to maintain her demeanor, but the distraction proved too much for Tim, who from now on, will be called Mary.

Format Flop.  NBC changed some things up for this version of the show.  I would argue that, for the most part, the format wasn’t broke and didn’t need fixing.  The loss of Carolyn was huge.  To make matters worse, the chair to Trump’s left became a revolving door for the Donald’s offspring and previous Apprentice winners.  The lack of a strong, consistent, independent voice in the boardroom was sorely missed. (more…)