The Obligatory Post-Oscar Post

A few comments on tonight's Oscars:

-The hilarity started before the ceremony even began, when Regis Philbin replaced the "J" in Javier Bardem's name with an "X". That's right: Xavier Bardem. Classy!

-Tommy Lee Jones was not amused by anything Jon Stewart said.

-Wesley Snipes and Spike Lee get stuck in a corner. And I wonder why they say Hollywood is racist.

-"Gaydolph Titler": comedy gold. Thank Christ the writers are back.

-I liked the clip where Catherine Zeta-Jones dedicates her Oscar to husband Michael Douglas, perhaps not realizing that he already had two. She was only 19 when he won his last one.

-I'd rather stick a shotgun in my mouth than have to suffer the indignity bestowed upon Amy Adams in performing that song. Now she knows how Rob Lowe felt when he sang with Snow White.

-Tilda Swinton seemed as surprised as the rest of us were that she won Best Supporting Actress. But don't say I didn't tell you.

-"The Fascination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford." Jennifer Hudson's grasp of the English language is outstanding.

-The Academy did the right thing, and refused to give Norbit an Oscar, regardless of how great Rick Baker's work is.

-Again, with the fucking animated Oscar presenters. At least Jerry Seinfeld was the only one that got to be embarrassed this time.

-Jerry O'Connell, a 20-time nominee in Best Sound, gets shut out for the 20th time. "Oh well, maybe next year": how many times do ya think he's heard that?

-I still haven't decided whether Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill deliberately tried to look like the Coens or not.

-The slippery spot stage left nearly takes out three people, including one after Colin Farrell pointed it out.

-Penelope Cruz doesn't even get to sit in the same area code as Javier Bardem, even though they're boyfriend/girlfriend. Mickey Rooney had better seats.

-Apparently, no one wanted to hear what Marketa Irglova had to say...until Stewart pulled her back on stage and let her speak. A genuinely nice moment. And I like it when the oddball song wins the Oscar. Fuck you, Enchanted!

-Nicole Kidman was wearing about a dozen too many diamonds, which is nothing, considering she was wearing about two gross.

-The "In Memoriam" part is always enlightening. Roscoe Lee Browne, Deborah Kerr, Lazlo Kovacs: when'd they all die? And who knew Kitty Carlisle was still alive? And it was nice of them to sneak Heath Ledger in there. I didn't even know Lois Maxwell, who starred in more James Bond movies than Ledger starred in movies altogether, had died, yet there's that fucker Ledger upstaging everyone again.

-I realize Harrison Ford is, like, 64 years old, but he acted like he was, like, 80.

-Name one other stripper to win an Oscar.

-Marion Cotillard winning was a legitimate shocker.

-No Country for Old Men walks away with almost everything. No surprise; it was the best movie last year. They finally got one right, for once. Bravo, Oscar! I did find it odd that the two Scott Rudin-produced movies nominated for Best Picture (No Country and There Will Be Blood) were made by a studio (Paramount Vantage) other than the one he's run for the past three years (Miramax). I'm sure The Walt Disney Company really appreciated him giving a shoutout to a rival studio.

A decent, if not predictable, show. We'll try again in 365 days.

Jesus Christ...FINALLY

In what I consider to be possibly the greatest upset victory in history, #2 Tennessee defeated #1 Memphis today. "And why," you ask, "is this the greatest upset in history?" Because it knocks the fucking University of Memphis out of the top spot.

The sad part about this is that they got beat by the #2 team, which means they'll just switch places on Monday. Which is a shame, since Memphis doesn't even deserve to be in the Top 25.

Yeah, you heard me: Memphis doesn't deserve to be a ranked team. They play in an absolute joke of a conference. When Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul, and South Florida all left for the Big East three years ago, every other team that had any basketball ability also moved out. A whole conference worth of filler moved in, and, suddenly, Memphis was the best team in a really bad conference.

Did you happen to notice that, before three years ago, Memphis was never ranked? (The same could be said of Marquette, but they actually moved into a good conference, probably the toughest conference in basketball. They really do deserve their rank.) Last year, Memphis ran the table in its conference games. Is that really a surprise when you're playing SMU, Rice, and East Carolina twice a season? Same deal this year, except that they just happened to be undefeated when they went into their conference games. Hence, the #1 rank, because...hey, undefeated team.

I'll admit that Memphis' non-conference schedule (the Tennessee game included) was tough. Their athletic director must be insane, because no one makes a non-conference schedule that tough. But, I guess when you know that you aren't going to have any challenge whatsoever in your conference games, you need to make it at least look like you're trying to be competitive. In fact, their RPI rank is a miraculous #2, solely because of their non-conference games.

But, still...

Do sports writers not have access to Memphis' schedule? Do they just look at their record and go, "Wow: undefeated. That gets my vote!" Are all sports writers located in Memphis, and this is how they root for the home team?

Maybe we'll get lucky, and everyone will go, "Hey, look what happens when Memphis plays a tough team. They lose!" and (not) vote them right out of the Top 25.

I doubt it, but one can always hope.

Law & Order Officially Ruined

Yesterday, it was announced that Jesse Martin, who has played Det. Ed Greene on Law & Order for nine years, was leaving the show. Martin has one more episode to film before his tenure is over.

Now, if you watch Law & Order, actors leaving the show is no big thing, as it happens all the time. Every actor that started on the show 18 years ago has moved on. (In fact, two of them, Dann Florek and Chris Noth, play the same characters they did on Law & Order on different shows now.) Only a handful have made it past the five-year mark. So, actors departing the show really doesn't bust me up that much.

No, what really busts my balls about this is that they're apparently replacing Martin with Anthony Anderson, my most hated of all actors. (And, apparently, Fox is about to cancel K-Ville.)

Now, I'll admit that Anderson was watchable, even enjoyable, in his two season guest stint on The Shield. But that's it. Every other performance has made me cringe. I've even shied away from movies and shows due to Anderson's presence in them. And now he's a regular on one of my favorite shows. Great!

Maybe he'll be able to dial down his annoyance factor enough for me to continue to enjoy the show. I seriously doubt it, but, Law & Order is one of my Shows; I'll watch regardless of quality.

So, check it out when Law & Order begins the Anthony Anderson Era this spring. Oh, and be sure to check out Anderson in Gobots: The Movie, coming to a theatre near you July 25th. I'm sure he'll be just as annoying in that Transforming Robot Movie as he was in Transformers.

(Praise be to Jesus for the Gobots poster.)

I Have A New Hero

The other day, I was on Fox.com, watching what turned out to be the Season Three finale of Prison Break (which really needed about six more episodes). Just on a lark, I was flipping through the rest of their on-demand shows, and noticed that they offered Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay's latest shoutathon. I had never seen this show before, or his other show, Hell's Kitchen, but I remembered a couple of guys on the radio a while back saying that it was the greatest show on TV. So, I decided to watch an episode.

And they were right. This may be the best show on TV. Not because it's a good show, as I'm loathe to call any reality show "good," but because it's ant-/protagonist, Gordon Ramsay, may be one of the greatest people to ever have a TV show.

I would love to be like Ramsay. Here's a guy with a dozen successful restaurants around the world. He's been awarded numerous stars by the Michelin Guide, including three for his flagship restaurant in London. He regularly has a restaurant make the Best Restaurants in the World List. He was even made an Officer of the British Empire for his contributions to the UK hospitality industry.

He also happens to be one of the meanest bastards I've ever seen.

And that's the great thing about the show and what inspires my wanting to be him. Obviously, Ramsay is great at what he does. He's one of the best restaurateurs in the world. So it's great to see him go into a floundering Mom-and-Pop joint and tell them that they know fuck all about running a restaurant, with every other word being "fuck." Ramsay actually wants to help these people be better, going as far as redesigning their restaurants and coming up with new menu items. But the fact he completely tears these people down before building them back up is what makes him great. Break 'em before you make 'em, I always say.

I wish there was something that I was so good at that I could completely trash anyone and not be speaking out of line. Who doesn't want that?

Since it's currently between seasons, you'll have to go to Fox.com to check it out, but it's well worth it. I watched half the season in one sitting.

Oh, and while you're there, why not watch those episodes of the apparently-canceled K-Ville that you might've missed. You know you love Anthony Anderson.

Admit it.

Sony Finally Wins A Format War

Sony always seems to find themselves embroiled in some sort of format war. In the neverending quest to make money, rather than just go with the flow and attempt to perfect already existing technology, they insist on "innovating" their own technology. This has never worked.

They were on the losing side of VHS v. Beta. Their MiniDisc got killed by CDs. The rest of the world uses the MP3 encoding format, while Sony insists on using ATRAC. The only people who use their Memory Stick flash memory are those dumb enough to have purchased a Sony product that requires them (Hello, PSP owners!). The only format which they were able to dominate with was Hi8, only because no one made a comparable product. But even Hi8 has almost been run out of town by MiniDV, which isn't even the same technology, but when was the last time you saw someone rockin' the Hi8?

And it all appeared to be happening once again when Toshiba decided to come out against Sony's Blu-ray in HD video with the HD DVD. The HD DVD was cheaper to produce, the players were cheaper, and the format got to market first. It appeared as though Sony was going to lose again.

But then Sony did the smartest thing they've done in a long time: they included a Blu-ray player with the PS3, essentially flooding homes with their disc's player. Although stand-alone HD DVD players outsold Blu-ray players, it couldn't compete with the fact that everyone that owned a PS3 (seven million and counting) has a Blu-ray player in their home.

A real backbreaker came when Warner Bros., the world's largest video distributor and the only major distributor to back both formats, claimed it would distribute only in Blu-ray going forward. The largest retail and rental chains (Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, respectively) had already made this switch. Things were looking even better for Sony.

And then Toshiba dropped their cards on the table, and came out with the announcement that they were no longer going to produce the HD DVD player, a machine they had invented to play their format. Paramount, which was distributing in solely in HD DVD, immediately switched sides. Microsoft, an HD DVD supporter from Day One, stopped production of their HD DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360.

Roughly, within one week, HD DVD was essentially dead (although it still roams the earth in zombie form). Sony wins by default.

Congrats, Sony; well done. Now that you've got this one sewn up, you should probably get to developing that next format that's going to be a laughingstock in five years. You're so good at it. I know you can do it.

It Was Only A Matter Of Time

In regards to Lindsay Lohan, I think there's always been a definite set of inevitabilities for her: that (a) we would see her naked, or (b) we would see her dead. Luckily for us, (a) happened before (b) (which is great, since I'm not that into dead chicks).

For no reason, other than her career being over, Lindsay has decided to appear in various, mostly naked, states of undress in New York magazine, in a recreation of Marilyn Monroe's final photoshoot. (Maybe there's some foreshadowing here; maybe option (b) is closer than we think.)

I don't understand why they'd pick Lindsay for this, as she really doesn't look anything like Marilyn, and Marilyn was pretty and Lindsay is...not, but, hey: Lindsay Lohan naked.

So, you might as well get it over with, and head over to New York magazine and check it out.

Now that we've got Lindsay's tits out of the way, maybe we can get on with writing her out of the cultural lexicon, so we can see how this Britney Spears thing plays out.

I'm hoping for the worst.

The NBA All-Star Game

I really didn't watch that much of the NBA All-Star Game, as I switched it off to be disappointed by the Knight Rider movie (which was terrible), but here's a couple of comments on what I did see.

-When did the player introductions become a Cirque du Soleil production number? The last time I actually sat down and watched an All-Star Game was 1989, and the players just trotted out on the floor when their names where announced. It about as elaborate as the visiting team introductions of any given NBA game. I guess some things have changed since then.

-And, speaking of changes, when did they move tip-off to 8:00 pm? This thing used to be on, like, 4:00 in the afternoon. Again, with the changes.

-As you can see from the picture above, this year's game featured the most confusing uniforms of all time. (Kidd and Iverson were not on the same team.) They were only colored on one side, but it was the opposide side on both uniforms, so you could only tell they were on different teams when the East players were facing you and the West players had their backs to you. The other way around, they appeared to be on the same team. I'm so confused, I may still be wrong on that.

-It was nice of Kobe to clock in his three minutes before sitting on the bench for the remaining 45. No, his finger injury isn't that serious. Not at all.

-Speaking of Kobe, when The Girl found out he was playing, she said, "What's he doing there? How's my team going to win now?" (Girl's a big Wade fan.) Turns out, she needn't have worried.

-While I appreciate the NBA and Harry Connick Jr's attempt to enlighten us on the New Orleans jazz scene, can't we do better than that for a half-time show? Do I really need to haul this out again to show the potential of a half-time show? Apparently, I do.

Really, not a great All-Star Game. As I mentioned earlier, it'd been 19 years since that last one I watched, and, if they're all like this, it'll be another 19 before I watch another.

Bravo, NBA, for knowing how to disappoint.

Last Five Movies

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
I've seen the movie Poltergeist a hundred times, but I think I've seen it all the way through maybe twice. Same thing with this movie. Until this viewing, I had never seen the first 45 minutes, yet I've seen the rest several hundred times. I was hoping to finally see the infamous failed stunt which killed Vic Morrow and two children, but they cleverly edited that out of the movie.

I wonder why.

The Amateurs (2005)
Or How to Make a Porno With No Porn. The only reason I picked this up was because it appeared to have a fairly entertaining B-list cast. And, speaking of which...do you remember when Jeff Bridges used to have a better career than Beau Bridges? Those were the days.

Return to Horror High (1987)
Nothing entertains me more than watching movies from the pre-E.R. filmography of George Clooney. And I mean the E.R. that's still on TV, not the sitcom with Elliot Gould that he was also in.

Employee of the Year (2007)
I still hold the same opinion of this movie now as when I first saw it: that the screenplay cheats and forces us to root for the wrong guy. Dane Cook's character is a shitbag who wants to be employee of the month so he can sleep with Jessica Simpson. Dax Shepard's character wants to be employee of the month because...he likes being employee of the month. And any movie that makes us root for Dane Cook is inherently wrong.

An odd choice, but the best I've seen...

In Bruges (2008)
The goofiest movie so far this year. It's also probably the funniest movie so far. It's nice to see Colin Farrell speak in his actual voice, as opposed to that Sonny Crockett voice he uses in all his American films. I'd never really thought of him as a funny guy (or any of the actors in this movie, for that matter), but he pulls it off. And I believe this movie will do more for Belgian tourism than anything their Department of Tourism can come up with. I know I can't wait to go.

Good flick; check it out. (BTW: Worst...Poster...Ever.)

Clemens Is Screwed

If you've been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, it'll come as a surprise to you that Roger Clemens may have irreparably fucked up his legacy as one of baseball's greatest pitchers. Not that you couldn't have seen it coming from miles away...

It all started, well, when Clemens, at age 36, became the best pitcher in baseball. Everyone wondered how a guy, who was on his way downhill in Boston, goes to Toronto and is better than he was 10 years before.

And then, the most hated man in the history of baseball, Jose Canseco, put out that book that named Clemens as an avid steroid user. Suddenly, baseball became very concerned about steroids. This, and Game of Shadows, the book about Barry Bonds' alleged steroid usage, led Commissioner Bud Selig to authorize an investigation by George Mitchell into steroids.

The Mitchell Report came out, and the biggest surprise in there? Roger Clemens. Clemens, of course, was quickly on the defensive, claiming that he was innocent and that any incriminating evidence listed in the Mitchell Report was all lies.

Which leads us today's debacle, of Clemens going in front of a Congressional hearing and acting like a complete moron, much like Palmeiro, McGwire, and Sosa before him. Even after his former teammates and friends throw him directly under the bus while admitting to their own steroid usage, Clemens still claims he's completely innocent. Seriously, when Chuck Knoblauch's rambling stories about his own inability to throw to first make people believe Clemens is guilty, he's probably guilty.

Which brings me to the bigger question: What exactly did Bud Selig hope to accomplish with this? When the whole Bonds thing came out and then Canseco's book, I could see him wanting to keep this thing from snowballing. So he instituted the drug policy and the drug testing, which led to him actually finding steroid users. And then he commissions the Mitchell Report to see what else he can ferret out.

But I don't think he expected that this is what they would find. (Or maybe he did, if you believe what John Rocker says.) I don't think he knew that Mitchell would find guys like Brian McNamee and Kirk Radomski, who could corroboratively link known steroid users (like Jason Grimsley) to unknown steroid users (like Clemens and Pettite, a claim which was later proven to be false, but actually appears to be true). That McNamee would take sports memorabilia collecting to a new level, and keep steroid-laced DNA samples of the players he'd injected. And I don't think he suspected these players, once they're called on it, would actually come out and admit to using steroids. I think what Selig saw as a measure to assuage public outcry on the whole steroid thing showed him that, like it or not, a lot of great players in the past 10 years might have gotten that way from using steroids.

Everyone, that is, except for The Rocket, who's as clean as new snow on this one.

Sure.

Finally

After three months, the Writers Strike is finally over. Not that it means anything for our TV watching habits. Even if every show resumes production tomorrow, it will be at least sometime in March, maybe April, before we see any new shows. Some shows, like Heroes and 24, won't even be back until next season. Others, like Bionic Woman, won't come back at all. And I suspect there won't be a lot of pilots for new shows this fall. So, be prepared for even more reality shows (except for Fox, which couldn't fit more reality shows in its schedule unless it extended its programming to more than two hours a night).

All this so these "starving" writers could get a $1400 check for the next two years.

Yeah: fucking TV up for the next six months, that was worth it.

Who Knew?

So, the Grammys were last night. The big shocker of the evening (other than the fact that Amy Winehouse was still alive to attend the ceremony live via satellite) was that Herbie Hancock won the biggest award of the night, the Album of the Year Grammy. It was one of two Grammys Hancock won last night, the other being Best Jazz Album.

Up until this point in time, I guess I realized that Herbie Hancock wasn't dead, but what I didn't realize is that he was still a vital and important musician. I mean, can you name any other Hancock song that isn't "Rockit"? (And if you can, I'm going to stab you in the throat for making shit up.) I also didn't realize that the two Grammys he won last night were the 11th and 12th of his career (and yes, one of those was for "Rockit"). Who knew?

Maybe it's me, but I think it's odd that an album of Joni Mitchell covers would win Best Album. I know the new Foo Fighters record isn't that good, but...seriously?

Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Jethro Tull did beat out Metallica that one time for the Best Heavy Metal Grammy. I guess having the word "metal" in your band's name counts for nothing in that category.

"You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat," He Says

Just wanted to mention the myeloma-related death of Roy Scheider. He was 75.

And, not to beat a literally dead horse, but this is another example of a guy whose passing will be greatly overlooked. Here's a guy who was in the business for 50 years, was the star in one of the highest-grossing movies of all time (a movie that everyone has seen), uttered the immortal line which I co-opted as my post title, yet he might get a page-length writeup in any of next week's magazines. Might.

Heath Ledger, on the other hand...well, I don't remember exactly when he died, but he's still on the front page of every tabloid this week.

As for Scheider's career, I'm a fan of Jaws, just like everybody else. I also enjoyed him as Bob Fosse's doppleganger in All That Jazz and his goofy turn as Dr. Benway in Naked Lunch.

Yet another one of the great old-timers bites the dust. He'll be missed.

Shaq Can Grab Nash's Ass Every Day Now, If He Wants

A couple of days ago, I posted on the Lakers getting Pau Gasol as a possible replacement for that "thing" they've been missing since they lost Shaq. The Miami Heat found it when they actually got Shaq and won a championship. Well, turns out, the Heat, who are really awful this year, no longer have Shaq. He's a Phoenix Sun now.

Shaq has been traded to the Suns for disgruntled forward Shawn Marion and a player to be named later (who is actually Marcus Banks, but like he's ever gonna play).

This is actually a really great deal for the Heat. They get a pretty versatile big man in exchange for the seat on the bench that Shaq's fat ass has been occupying since the onset of his latest injury. It's a good deal for Marion as well, as he instantly moves in as option #2 in an offense that pretty much just has that one option. (Wade's my boy, but he's not Kobe or Iverson; he's just not good enough to will a team into being good.)

As for the Suns...their fast-paced offense gets the 340 lb anchor that is Shaquille O'Neal. Remember in Aiplane!, when Kareem tells that kid to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes? Steve Nash will be saying something similar to this when he's asked why the Suns are suddenly running the "water torture" offense. Luckily for them, Shaq is still injured, so his lumbering presence won't be felt until at least next week.

Honestly, I don't know what the Suns thought they were getting. Maybe they don't realize it's 2008 and think they're getting the svelte Shaq that used to hustle down the court in Orlando. Maybe they think they're good enough that they can overcome the fact that Shaq may not cross halfcourt by the time they score (ironically, much the way Kareem did in his later years). Maybe they just got so tired of Marion bitching about his role that, "hell, if we could get Shaq for him, that might not be a total bust."

Regardless of how it turns out, whether the Heat improve or not, whether the Suns slow down or not, a lot of people are going to be watching Shaq. Either Suns' new President Steve Kerr will be hailed as a genius for bringing Shaq to Phoenix, or be run out on a rail as the guy that saddled the Suns with that behemoth.

I suspect the "genius" calls will be held in check.

Heath Who?

My friend Jesus brought up something interesting in the comments of this post about Heath Ledger's death. That, unless you're a big Ledger fan (and how can you not be), most people really can't name any movies they've seen with Ledger in them. I've seen two, and only remembered them when I looked him up on IMDB. But I watch a lot of movies, and when you watch 5-10 movies a week, you're bound to see one on accident. The Girl couldn't remember any she'd seen until I told which ones she'd seen.

And yet this guy's getting comparisons to James Dean in his cultural significance. This for a guy who, even though people can name some of his movies, I don't think a lot of people have seen (or will admit to, as he did star in Brokeback Mountain). Just for the sake of comparison, let's look at another actor.

I'm willing to bet that every man, woman, and child living in the U.S. has seen a Darren McGavin movie, THE Darren McGavin movie, if you will. I know they have. Yet I'd also be willing to bet that most people have no idea who he is or that he is currently dead. Or, take, for example, Christopher Lee, who, when he dies, probably won't get 24 hr coverage on CNN or a front page writeup in People, even though he's starred in about 150 movies.

Yet, here's a kid who's been in about 10 movies, who died of a prescription narcotic overdose, that they're just treating like he was the greatest actor ever. (And they throw Brad Renfro, who was the same age and died the same way a couple days before Heath, right out with the trash.) But, that's the media for ya: they pick and choose their darlings. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan have contributed absolutely nothing to society in about five years, yet they might as well rename People and Us Weekly to Britney and Lindsay for the amount of coverage they get. A young, attractive guy like Ledger will get more coverage than the death of a President, but a prolific, respected guy like Christopher Lee might get a blurb in the obits, because, well, he's 85 and looks like Dracula.

All this complaining will be for naught when The Dark Knight comes out, because everyone will see that. Then people will actually be able to name that Heath Ledger movie they've seen.

His legacy lives on.

Hannah Montana Rules The World

Apparently, Hannah Montana is popular. I wouldn't know, as I've never seen her show, because I'm 34 and a) it has no appeal to me, and b) it's illegal for me to even look at Miley Cyrus. But my abstinence from the whole Hannah Montana phenomena didn't stop everyone else from making her Best of Both Worlds concert movie from becoming a record-setting box office smash.

The movie won the weekend's box office with a $31 million take. It became the biggest opener on a Super Bowl weekend. On 683 screens, it opened at #1 on the fewest screens ever. At $45 thousand per screen, it set a record for per screen average for a wide release movie. And, as it's a 3-D movie, it had the 2nd largest opening for a 3-D movie ever (Spy Kids 3 is #1) and is already the 8th highest-grossing 3-D movie ever.

It's no surprise this movie is a hit, as it's a movified version of her "Best of Both Worlds" tour, which sold out every show and tickets drew astronomical scalper prices. Who wouldn't pay $10 to see something they didn't get a chance to pay $100 to see?

Unfortunately, this movie, which could dominate the upcoming weekend's weak openings as well, is short-lived. You've only got until Thursday to see it, as they've chosen to just release it for seven days. So, a movie that could easily make $100 million if they opened it to 2000 screens for a month is happy just making, like, $40 million in seven days.

I appreciate the long-time Disney strategy of "catch it before it's gone!", but, this is Hollywood. Isn't the object to make as much money as possible?

Oh well. I'm sure Disney is happy to make that much money on this deal, seeing as Miley Cyrus is about two years away from pulling a Lizzie McGuire, and forcing them to find some other 13 year-old girl to be the Next Big Thing.

Eli Manning Is Going To Disney World

Some random thoughts on the Super Bowl:

-Too bad 18-1 doesn't count as a perfect season. I don't think anyone will ever do it again, but "perfect" means no losses.

-Plaxico Burress, who completely destroyed the Packers to get to the Super Bowl, is shut down for two catches. Luckily, one of them was the game-winning touchdown.

-On the losing team, Wes Welker caught a record-tying 11 passes to cap off a season that would have put him in the Pro Bowl if he didn't play on the same team as Randy Moss. I know: "Wes Who?"

-I saw a graphic that claimed that the Patriots had the 2nd fewest yards of offense at halftime in Super Bowl history. Number one on that list? The '85 Pats team that got smoked by the Super Bears.

-In a completely ridiculous move, the NFL puts one second back on the game clock and forces the Giants to run one last play. Bill Belichick is already in the locker room. Nice.

-While it was nice to see the NFL haul Doug Williams out of mothballs to present the Lombardi Trophy, I'm not sure I understand exactly why they chose him. Was Phil Simms busy? He at least played for the Giants.

-I'm not sure what they paid the cast of Prison Break to stage a break in at the Super Bowl, but it was well worth it. T-Bag rules!

-Good slate of commercials this year. My favorite was the Bridgestone commercial with Alice Cooper and his snake in the road.

-Even though he's a better fit for the Super Bowl, Tom Petty was nowhere near as good as Prince was last year. I don't even think his guitar was plugged in. (Prince's sure was, and in a rain storm, to boot.)

-This was the most-watched Super Bowl ever. In fact, so many people watched it that it's become the 2nd most-watched program ever, behind the series finale of M*A*S*H. Maybe the Patriots and Giants should play in every Super Bowl.

Overall, one of the better Super Bowls in a while. It was a letdown not to see the perfect season come to fruition, but I'm sure Tom Brady will get over it later tonight when Gisele disrobes for his sympathy fuck. And I'm sure the kids in Somalia prefer getting shirts claiming the Patriots won Super Bowl 42.

Maybe they won't get so lucky next year.

Lakers Finally Admit Kobe Is Useless

The LA Lakers made a bold move to improve their team on Friday, by trading for Memphis center/forward Pau Gasol. This trade will greatly strengthen the Lakers, as the Triangle offense depends upon having someone big who can score down low (and Kwame Brown or Andrew Bynum aren't those guys). And, I think it's the Lakers' way of finally saying that Kobe Bryant is completely useless to them winning any championships.

Kobe is probably the best player out there right now. Guy can beat you in so many ways. Last year, he had a string of four games where he didn't score any fewer than 50 points, and a couple of those were for 60+. Yet the Lakers only finished two games over .500. Kobe could average 60 points a game, and the Lakers would still suck. You take Kobe off that team and the Lakers might, might win two games, and that would only be if the other teams forfeited.

"But if Kobe is so great, why can't the Lakers win?" Because the Lakers got rid of what Kobe needed to win.

When Shaq was still with the Lakers, he and Kobe won three straight championships. When Shaq got exiled to Miami, he found a suitable Kobe substitute in Dwanye Wade and won another championship. The Lakers replaced Shaq with Chris Mihm, and haven't been past the first round of the playoffs since. Go back and look at when Kobe and Shaq still played together. Kobe + Shaq = wins. Kobe - Shaq = not wins.

Basically, it's impossible for one player to single-handedly drag his team to a championship. Not even the incredible Michael Jordan could win a championship until the rest of his team stepped up their games. (Look at his famous 63 point game against the Celtics for a perfect example of how not to win.) Jordan couldn't do it, Iverson couldn't do it, and Kobe can't do it. Every great team built around a superstar needs another player to pick up the slack. Kareem had Magic (who, in turn, had Worthy), Bird had McHale, Jordan had Pippen, Thomas had Dumars, and Shaq had...uh, Kobe.

Is Pau Gasol that guy? Well, considering the Lakers offense that won those championships consisted of a little guy throwing the ball to a big guy or vice versa, having a big guy that can actually score might just be what the Lakers need. Or, Kobe will continue to hog the ball and the Lakers will still suck.

We'll see how it pans out in the coming weeks.