Oh Hell No

I've played Half-Life. I've seen how this story ends.

I've been having trouble sleeping lately as it is. This is going to make me an absolute insomniac.

We've pretty much gotten rid of Castro, and now apparently Kim Jong-Il, and for what? Just in time for the world to collapse in a resonance cascade series of black holes because some egghead forgot to carry a one somewhere.

Liveblog: NFL 2008 Season Opener

Thought I'd try a liveblog here tonight as I get ready to watch the Giants-Redskins opener here. For the uninitiated, that means I'll be posting a series of random and increasingly incoherent thoughts in this post as the game progresses. You can keep hitting refresh for my expert commentary. Newest update goes under this drivel, but above the previous updates.

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0:00 1-0 record, 1-0 division record. Not a bad start to the year. I hope Kiwanuka is OK--he got hurt on the last play and NBC cut over to the convention before they could find out how he is. Guess I'll flip over to ESPN News for Coughlin's press conference. Good night, everyone!

2:00 warning Jim Zorn is completely lost here. I've seen Pop Warner coaches manage the clock better. We got this, boys. We got this.

5:51 Same score since the second quarter, and Tuck just made a FANTASTIC stop following the late hit penalty. My confidence is returning.

10:53 The "meatatarian" Wendy's commercial almost makes me want to become a vegetarian. Almost.

12:55 We're up by 2 scores in the 4th quarter. If you'd offered me that deal at kickoff, I'd have taken it. Offense could have been better, but what the hell.

4th qtr, 14:18 The offensive line is doing their job. If the defense keeps doing theirs, we might just be able to run out the clock on this sucker.

2:14 Long injury time out. Fortunately, it's Fred Smoot and not one of the Giants.

6:30 A promising drive ends with Eli getting picked on a bad overthrow of Boss. And all three of my fantasy teams drop two points. Freaking awesome.

8:33 Three plays later and the Skins are punting, proving my histrionics premature as usual. Pretty literate sentence from me, but I'm only on my third beer since kickoff.

9:32 It's all falling apart as Portis busts off a 20+ yard run. If the Giants lose, this is where it all went to hell.

10:14 Giants' first punt. Not too shabby, but like I said down there, we need touchdowns!

12:50 Wow, he caught that with his yambag. Good thing Tom didn't try to challenge that (not that he would have with 4th down coming up.)

3rd qtr, 15:00 Giants website finally has a chat room back on their website, after a long hiatus. It's not the haven for knowledgeable football fans that it used to be. I'm disappointed.

Halftime and I'm nervous as can be. Taking a break from the liveblog.

0:13 16-7. One bad series pretty much negates a half that couldn't have gone better up till the two minute warning.

1:04 This isn't funny any more. If the Skins get a touchdown here, it'll be eerily close, despite the Giants' first half dominance on both sides of the ball.

1:10 Mark this down: Jason Campbell finally completes his first pass. If you have him on your fantasy team, YOU LOSE!

1:52 The Redskins finally caught a break on poor kickoff coverage by the Giants' special teams. That looked like Fassel's kick coverage teams, not Coughlin's.

2:25 No way was a run play the right call there. Now we have to settle for another FG, and a long one for Carney at that. He got it, though--16-0 G-Men.

4:52 Madden: "Laron Landry is not going to tackle [Brandon Jacobs] high again". Translation: Laron Landry is scared shitless of Brandon Jacobs.

11:03 Giants need to get some touchdowns on these long drives. If they're settling for 3 against the Redskins, what are they going to do against a real opponent?

2nd qtr, 12:43 These Coors Light "press conference remix" commercials are just about played out.

End Q1: The scoreboard doesn't do justice to how one-sided this game has been thus far. The Giants are pretty much moving at will, and the Redskins offense has more yards on penalties than on actual plays.

1:51 Hmmm. I wonder if the Eagles are still paying Jerome McDougle under the table. Nice penalty, jerkoff.

2:49 Redskins false start on the first play of their second drive. FACED on the next play. The 'Skins might be worse than even I thought this year.

2:53 I wonder how much the Giants have to pay for the custom small facebar on John Carney's helmet. I thought sure Morten Andersen was the last guy grandfathered in to use those. Oh yeah--10 to zip Giants. Boo-yah.

4:03 Wow--seven years of Madden and Michaels? Call me old fashioned, but I still miss Pat Summerall.

4:34 Jacobs is a BEAST. That hit he just laid on Laron Landry could make it to "Jacked Up" on Monday.

9:15 First play from scrimmage is a SACK! Justin Tuck isn't going to get through the whole season with that little attention, though.

9:54 TOUCHDOWN G-MEN! Nice drive, but you shudder to see your QB take on a defender and dive for the end zone on first down in the first series of the season. Ask Pennington how bad a shoulder injury can screw your career up.

10:01 And your referee for the evening is Muscles (or is that Mussels) Marinara, aka Ed Hochulie. Nice.

10:43 Heck of a throw and Plaxico is EN FUEGO!!!!~!

10:55 Watch the slapping, Jacobs. We don't need to be knocked out of FG range on a dumbass penalty.

12:20 WOW was the coverage on Burress blown there. The Redskins don't just suck, they su-hu-hu-hu-huck.

1st qtr, 14:00 Nice to see Steve Smith getting looks early. He was an important part of the Super Bowl offense.

Kickoff: Bad blocking by the G-Men on the return. I almost wish they'd kicked off so we could get a good look at the Osi-less D line.

Pregame 3: Strahan calls Giants fans the "greatest fans in sports." Not buying it, at least for the fans at the stadium. In my experience, the fans at the stadium are mostly douchebags who sit on their hands when they should be making noise.

Pregame 2: Also just realized that the game is on NBC, not NFL Network. I'm a mess tonight.

Pregame: When I tuned in NFL Network, I found Usher warbling off-key, so I threw on a Simpsons rerun instead. Would have loved to have caught some pregame but I didn't realize until shortly after 6 PM that the game was at 7:00, not 8:00 due to the Republican convention. Hoping my stromboli gets here before the game starts. Also, really, really hoping for a Giants win. Eli is the QB of all three of my fantasy teams, and I have the Giants picked for a LOT of points in my NFL pick-em pool.

Gitmo Ain't No Nuremberg

Bin Laden's driver gets a slap on the wrist
Apparently, in the 21st century, "I vas only follovink orders" is a viable defense. That's the only way to explain the wimpy sentence of 5 1/2 years handed down to confessed Al-Qaida member Salim Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden's personal chauffeur, yesterday. Check out this quote from the MSNBC article linked at the top of this post:

Referring to the decks of cards the U.S. military has distributed with images of most-wanted terrorists, Davis said: "Hamdan would be the two of clubs."

But even the two of clubs is in the deck--and there's only 52 cards! That means one of the top 52 terrorists on our list is eligible to be released in as little as five months. Five. Months. For someone who was there and working with the plotters of one of the worst mass murders ever committed. The verdict and sentence of the first Guantanamo trial was a chance to send a message to the world that terrorism will be punished harshly, if not swiftly. Instead, the message we've sent is that we're going soft, right as we head for a period of transition at the highest levels of our government. I just hope this message isn't paid for, in the end, with American lives.

Favre and Away

Wouldn't it be nice to remember Brett Favre like this?

Or like this?

Or maybe holding the Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl XXXI?

Instead, all but the most die-hard Packer and Favre fans have this enduring image:

Yep, ol' number 4, in front of a crowd of reporters, ambiguating like a John Kerry campaign speech. I don't begrudge the guy wanting to come back for one more year, but look at the position he put his team in. He announced his retirement; the Packers have to plan for the coming season and beyond. Handing over the starting QB reins for one more year may sound good sentimentally, but it would have been a piss-poor business decision. Trading him to a division rival or releasing him (and freeing him to sign with the same rivals) when he clearly had value in a trade would have been just as bad. Green Bay did the only sensible thing they could have done when they shipped him to the Jets late last night: allow their "QB of the Future" to begin his new life as a starter, get Favre out of not just the division, but the conference, and get some value to improve their team for '09 and beyond. Now that the deal is done, hopefully the national sports media can quit indulging Brett Favre's seemingly unquenchable desire for the spotlight and get their focus back on training camps, preseason games (did anyone even know that the Hall of Fame game was last Sunday?), and the upcoming season. And Brett Favre better hope that he still has enough left in the tank to live up to all the hype that's been surrounding him. It's unlikely a bad season will keep him out of Canton, but at the very least, it'll get the voters thinking, "At least Montana knew when to hang it up."

Random Thoughts 7.29.08

• I was watching the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman over the weekend, and was amazed how similar his campaign speeches in the beginning sounded to some of the things Barack Obama is saying now. In 1992, these were supposed to be the inane ramblings of a con artist, and it was supposed to be funny to think that people would buy into it and vote for him.
  
• Bennigan's is filing for bankruptcy. They haven't been the same since they discontinued the burger topped with the giant wheel of fried mozzarella, but I'm sure going to miss the deep-fried turkey-and-ham-and-cheese sandwiches.
• With NFL training camp opening, and Jeremy Shockey living the Mardi Gras life this season, I need to take what may be one of the last opportunities to gloat over my Giants' Super Bowl win by posting this pic:
  
  That's right, it's a Nicaraguan peasant wearing one of the unsellable Patriots 2007 world champs T-shirts.
• Richie Sexson sucks.

No I Don't Have Feelings

'Cuz feelings are gay!

Weekend misogyny, beeyotches!

That About Sums It Up

This is an actual bumper sticker. You can get it here, and the proceeds go to a good cause. First seen on Vodkapundit.

This is about where I'm at as far as the '08 election goes (though you have no idea how happy I am to see that bloodsucker Edwards caught up in a scandal that's going to cost him a shot at VP). What the hell, I live in Delaware--my state's whopping three electoral votes are going to Obama no matter what I do. Maybe I'll throw my vote away on Bob Barr. I'm really more of a Libertarian in Republican's clothing anyway.

Stray-Rod

The last-ever MLB All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium is right around the corner, and all the buzz this week is about....A-Rod and Madonna. Of course, all this comes as a surprise to no one who's been paying any kind of attention to baseball and/or the gossip pages (which seem to be pretty interchangeable right now)--strippers are crawling out of the woodwork to get their 15 seconds (you don't get minutes in this case; he's a ballplayer, not a governor) of fame by telling the world they banged A-Rod (seen at left popping out with the game on the line in the 9th--AGAIN), and he was even caught going to a Toronto hotel last year with a stripper who bore a body type resemblance to She-Hulk. No, the only question here is what on earth would possess the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Rodriguez to conceive a second child with a world-class philanderer like her soon-to-be-ex-husband. It all becomes clearer if you accept the rumors that she ditched them in Miami while she ran around Paris with Lenny Kravitz: more kid$=more child $upport. There's gold in them thar balls!

Of course, I do have to stick up for the guy a little bit--he plays for my team, after all. My pal and Red Sox fan Pat sent me this little gem, making sure to point out the part about A-Rod drinking sex-on-the-beach cocktails. Yeah, drinking fruit drinks and then nailing a hot stripper--that's really gay, there, buddy! If only he could be more hetero--you know, like Papi and Man-Ram.

Use(less)net

By now everyone who reads this blog knows what a huge fan I am of the New York Football Giants. What you may not know is where I go for my daily dose of breaking Giants news. Of course I check BBI on a daily basis, but that site is only updated daily, so for breaking news and discussion, I head for the Giants newsgroup on Usenet (for the truly geeky, it's alt.sports.football.pro.ny-giants). There, I can find out what other Giants fans are reading, watching, and thinking, and occasionally I even participate in the discussion.

But all that just got a lot harder. In an egregious example of overstepping the authority of one's office, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has strongarmed several major internet service providers into dropping most or all access to Usenet newsgroups. The reason? 88 out of over 100,000 of them--that's around .08%--contained some form of child porn. Does this sound like overkill to you? Why not ban digital cameras? Or analog cameras and scanners? That would ensure that no one ever trades child porn again ever. Or extend it into other areas of life. Want to reduce highway fatalities? Ban automobiles--everyone takes the train! But wait, once in a while, people get hit by trains (either accidentally or as a means of suicide). So it looks like we're back to the ol' Foot 'n' Leather Express.

The Founding Fathers thought that the right to free and open speech and expression was so important that they made it the very first piece of the Bill of Rights. But Cuomo doesn't seem to care, extorting ISPs with the threat of bad publicity, since, as the CNet article stresses, using the law to accomplish this has already been ruled unconstitutional. Hopefully, the ACLU (who, in their defense, was involved in overturning Pennsylvania's attempt to legislate Internet censorship) will take a break from defending terrorists and rapists and put the pressure on New York and the ISPs to bring back our newsgroups. My Giants offseason depends on it.

Tech Tip: Clean Your System

One of our staff introduced me to a great little utility last week to clean up (and speed up) Windows-based systems. It's called CrapCleaner, or CCleaner for short. There's not much to it--just download it (it's freeware), install it, and run it until it says there's nothing left to clean. It doesn't take too long to run, and most of the default settings work just fine. My only caveat is to think twice before letting it clean up your Internet Explorer/Firefox stuff. Chances are if you've got saved passwords/browser histories/recently typed URLs, you've got them for a reason, and deleting them won't give you much of a speed boost. Other than that, this is a great little utility for computers that haven't been formatted in a while.

In Memoriam: Tim Russert 1950-2008

I was asked over the weekend if I would be taking down the farting video that I posted a couple of weeks ago in light of Tim Russert's passing on Friday. The answer is no, I won't, but I will take a moment to pay respect to a good newsman. Russert did a better job than most at attempting to put his personal views aside and present a balanced viewpoint, always asking the tough questions regardless of the subject's political affiliations. Russert's voice will be missed among the mainstream media elite.

Strahan

With the start of the NFL's training camp season right around the corner, one of my all-time favorite Giants, Michael Strahan, announced his retirement yesterday. I'm a little surprised that he'd walk away from a guaranteed $4 million (with bonuses rumored to kick in at the almost-surely-reachable level of 6 sacks), especially to rebuild his war chest after his shrew of an ex-wife cleaned him out, but I can respect his desire to go out with his health more or less intact and as a Super Bowl champion. He has the single season sack record, and he's still nearly 60 sacks behind the career record, so that one is likely forever out of his reach. It would have been nice of him to have let his team, his coach, or at least his front office staff know of his decision before announcing it to the press, but for the most part, his departure was fittingly dignified. Let's just hope he's learned a thing or two from Tiki Barber and leaves behind any petty grudges he may have had in the locker room as he searches for a job in the broadcast booth. Thanks for fifteen great years, captain.