What The Hell Happened To...

Movies?

I'm becoming increasingly concerned that we may be almost done with movies. I think about the best movies I've seen lately. The new Star Trek was good, but it's still just Star Trek again. The Dark Knight was awesome, but how many Batman movies can we make? Inglourious Basterds was pretty good, but about a half hour too long and certainly not Tarantino's best work. Then I think about all the bad movies I've seen or heard about lately.

I watched a little bit of the Golden Globe awards a couple of weeks ago. I honestly don't know why, that doesn't really sound like me. But I did. I usually at least pay attention to the comedy category when those award shows are on, because, ya know, I like jokes. The nominees this year were just a mess. It's complicated? I'm not going to see that, but just from the commercials and previews, my guess is I'd be more inclined to file that one under tragedy. Julie and Julia? I'm sure it's a nice movie if you like Julia Child, but I have a hard time imagining it as funny. "oh look, she wants to cook, but it's hard, and maybe she's a little clumsy, HI-larious, but also inspiring". If you're trying to inspire me, or make me feel happy, that's not a comedy, and you won't succeed.

The Hangover won for best comedy. I saw that movie. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I sort of feel like we've already pulled out all the comedy Vegas has to offer. We get it, crazy things happen in Vegas, and there's strippers and hookers and alcohol and stuff. Avatar won for best picture. Maybe it's a great movie, but the contrary son of a bitch in me refuses to ever see it or acknowledge it's existence.

Then, this weekend, I saw two different DVD's. We'll get to the second one later, but the first one was The Invention of Lying. What a disaster. Just a wandering plot with a thin premise and 65 different versions of the same joke. "Ohhh, I get it, people would be really mean and stuff if they couldn't lie". And why do we always assume that people who don't have the ability to lie also can't just shut up? Why does not being able to lie also mean giving voice to every stupid thought that enters your head?

After about 55 minutes of that, out of nowhere, you get 5 or 10 minutes of really good, harsh religious satire. It seems good natured when you're watching the movie, but when you think about it, it's actually a pretty hard ass kicking for the concept of religion. Here's the basic premise. People can't lie and, at the same time, there's no concept of religion or the afterlife. Then, one guy figures out how to lie and, almost immediately, invents religion. After that fun little bit, you get about 30 more minutes of nonsense and there's your movie. So, I enjoyed about five minutes because I'm not religious and I wasn't offended, but if you're a religious person, who might be, ya know, bothered by the suggestion that religion is all a giant lie, it might be the worst movie you could ever see.

Have we just run out of stories to tell? That has to happen eventually, right? I don't know. I don't like this theory because it's sort of untestable. How do you tell the difference between Hollywood being out of new ideas and Hollywood just being lazy? It's impossible.

Maybe we just have too many stupid people around (this, by the way, is one of my theories for quite of few of the problems we have). Stupid people like stupid movies, because smart comedies or well-written dramas make them frightened and angry. Maybe appealing to this lowest common denominator is killing Hollywood.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen some legitimately good movies in the last few years. The previously mentioned Dark Knight and Star Trek, The Lucky Ones, Funny People, The Hurt Locker, Music Within was a really good, little known movie, District 9 was pretty solid. But none of them jumped out at me as a reason to be hopeful. They seemed more like the last remnants of quality being washed downstream in the endless river of crap.

This brings me to the second DVD I saw this weekend. 500 Days of Summer is a romantic comedy that won a lot of film festival awards. Needless to say, it wasn't on the top of my to see list. But I'm a big fan of Zooey Deschanel and it was either that or Pelham 123. Anyway, what a great movie. The romantic part was realistically depressing. The comedy was genuine and never felt forced. The whole thing was spot on from start to finish, I don't think I would have changed anything. And just like that, I feel better about movies.

Hey, you know what. Maybe movies were always mostly crap. Maybe I'm just noticing more now because my mood gets progressively worse as I get older and DVD's make it easier to see the movies I used to get through life without noticing. Yeah, I'm going with that. Hey, could that be the answer to everything? Nothing's getting worse, I just like things less than I used to. No, I don't think so, TV's definitely better (in spite of the Jersey Shore, and if you didn't see a second season of that show coming, you don't know anything about shamelessness), video games are better too. I only play Madden, but still, it's better. Phew! For a minute there I thought it was all my fault.

Dude, Where's My Pro-Bowl?

So, first of all, the superbowl match-up is set. I promised I wouldn't do anymore football picking this year if I couldn't get at least one championship game right, so I'm not picking the superbowl. It would be cruel for me to doom one team to certain defeat by picking them. I actually wound up rooting extra hard for myself to be wrong about the NFC game once the Jets lost. There's just no way I would have been able to watch a Peyton Manning vs. Brett Favre superbowl. None. I would have had to spend next Sunday watching...I don't know, whatever it is women watch during the superbowl. I have to say though, a lot of my pre-game analysis for the championship games was on point, right up until the part where I tried to pick winners.

I said the Jets would have to figure out how to cover the non-Revis side of the field. After about 600 yards from Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie, I think the Jets will be shopping for a new cornerback this off-season. It was unbelievable how poorly the Jets covered those two guys. It's like the Colts had their Madden game set on rookie.

There was a point during the second quarter of that game when I really thought the Jets could win. They were up 17-6 right before the half and the Colts were looking pretty rattled. Then Manning sliced through the Jets defense before halftime and that was pretty much that. Are you telling me you thought the Jets had a chance to hold on in the second half? I don't believe you.

The NFC game was perfect. Vikings driving, seconds left to play, all Favre had to do was take the 5-7 yards in front of him and give the kicker a shot, in a dome. What happened next was absolutely priceless, maybe my favorite football game moment ever. The best part was, anyone watching who knew anything about football knew exactly what was going to happen as soon as Favre started winding up to throw. You could practically hear the entire state of Minnesota screaming "no, NO, NOOOOOOOO!" followed by the entire state of Wisconsin laughing hysterically.

Why, you ask, do I find so much humor in Brett's failure? Well, how about this? After the game, when asked about the possibility of him returning next year, he said that it was "highly unlikely". This will go on forever, your grandchildren will be wondering if Brett Favre is coming back to play the 2087 season opener on the moon.

All of this gave us a fantastic superbowl match-up. The thoroughly likable Saints against the completely contemptible Colts. I won't pick the game, but I'll damn sure be rooting for the Saints. Not only can't I stand Peyton Manning, not only is New Orleans the obvious team to root for here unless you live in Indiana, but the football gods are the only gods I still believe in (stupid Zeus, I prayed to him for years, what do I have to show for it? Not a damn thing! Damn ancient Greeks). If the Colts win after quitting on a perfect season, I'll have nothing to believe in.

Speaking of football, this weekend is the pro-bowl. I've heard lots of different opinions about this, moving the pro-bowl to the week before the superbowl and moving it from Hawaii to the superbowl site. I have to say, I'm a fan of this idea.

First of all, it's not like I could care about the pro-bowl less than I already do. It's not like anyone has to move their big annual pro-bowl party. I've heard some people make the argument that the NFL shouldn't tinker with things while it's doing so well. I understand that idea, but when your all-star game has basically become the who cares bowl, why not try something different. You can't ruin something that's already worthless.

Now, I don't like the idea of having a 0% chance of the superbowl teams' players appearing in the pro-bowl. That problem would really bother me about the new date, except that the chance of that happening previously was about .003%.

I actually heard someone point out that the players don't get to go to Hawaii anymore. Oh, boohoo. I'm sure the incredibly rich guys who get like 7 months off every year can find the time and money to somehow get to Hawaii.

Most importantly, I think the new date is a great piece of scheduling. If there's one thing I've always hated about the NFL, it's the random week off between the rest of the season and the superbowl. It was easily my least favorite thing about football that isn't an over-hyped quarterback. I think a lot of people really want football that week. I've never watched the pro-bowl before, I'd always moved on to other sports in my head. It was like having a hockey game in August. This weekend, I'm watching the pro-bowl, because it's still football season, and that's what you do during football season, you watch football.

Article 2 Section 3

"He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient..."

I'm a political junkie, and I do enjoy keeping running commentaries of things that are happening on my TV. So, the State of the Union address is a no-brainer for me. Just to be clear, I'm not going to try and document everything the President says, this isn't the New York Times (for one thing, I might still have one or two readers, "Haw Haw!, your medium is dying"). I'm also making no promises that this blog entry will be well written, intellectually organized or correctly spelled. I'll just pick out some of the things that jump out at me.

It's probably easiest to do the highlights from the pre-speech stuff by network.

Fox went with solo O'Reilly until about five minutes before the speech. He spent his first segment bragging about his ratings. Seriously, someone needs to tell Fox that half of their viewers are watching for laughs(and the other half are watching while trying eat their soup with a fork). Bill also spent a lot of time talking about how boring he thought the speech would be and how painful it would be for him to watch. Awesome job of getting people engaged Bill, well done. Bill also had Dick Morris on at some point. The bridge Dick lives under must be right by Fox's building, he's there all the time.

MSNBC gave us the usual 8PM Olbermann hour with some extra special guests as we got closer to the speech. My favorite single moment came at 8:18PM, when they appeared to run a commercial for the show I was already watching. Keith's favorite topic tonight was the ACORN video kid and his friends who got arrested for scamming their way into a Senator's office. Keith was a little too giddy about this for me.

This is just some dumbass kid who stumbled onto the ACORN story. He got lots of publicity because Republicans hate ACORN. Also because he had the good sense to use his hot friend as the hooker, which certainly didn't hurt with making the whole story good TV. So then he tried to find other ways to get on TV, but I guess his hot friend was gone, he probably tried to sleep with her, so he needed a new idea and wound up committing a felony. It's just a sad story of a moron and the other morons who encouraged him. I don't feel all that interested in it.

In a huge upset, easily the funniest pre-speech coverage was CNN's. CNN had Campbell Brown moderating a 10-person panel. Ten. TEN! And they had other guests via satellite. Everyone got to say four words, Paul Begala's "Hope President speech good" was especially poignant.

Wolf Blitzer was there too, but he spent most of the hour lurking behind one of the panels near his magic wall. The ten panel members appeared to be sharing 6 laptops. For what? Are there speech exit polls coming in, are they coming in before the speech? Were they on twitter and facebook since they only got to talk for 20 seconds each? CNN also had this whole room full of people at computers who were going to be following and analyzing the speech. No kidding, there may have been more people on CNN during the pre-speech than there were in the House chamber during the speech. I could go on about this all night, CNN's pre-speech hour was mind blowing.

Quickly, my wish list of three things I'd love to see tonight, but aren't going to happen:
1) I'd like to see the President challenge any Republican to a fist fight.
2) I'd like to see the President fire someone on the spot with no warning. I'd vote for Janet Napolitano
3) I'd like to see the President break out a quick Bush impression.

OK, OK, enough fun. Madam Speaker, the President of the United States...

While the President makes his customary 52 minute trip from the door to the podium, I should mention that this didn't seem to start well. The two guys who announce the President's arrival spent a good 90 seconds waiting in the doorway to make the announcement. It was like Congress wasn't expecting them. "oh, the President you say? I wish I had known he was coming, I would have baked something"

Biden looks happy to be on TV, and Obama looks happy Biden and Pelosi don't get to talk.

The first section was mostly about how crappy things still are and how everyone needs to work together to move forward. A for honesty, F for being super depressing for five minutes.

The President mentioned how he and everyone else hated the bank bailout, and everyone clapped. That's funny because he and like 300 of those clapping people voted for it. Then the President said he's working on getting the rest of the money back from the banks, not as many people clapped for that one. The Republicans wouldn't even clap for the President's litany of tax cuts, and he pointed that out, which was pretty funny.

By the way, this whole clapping and not clapping thing is so petty and stupid, from both parties. These people are supposed to be running the country, every time the President finishes a sentence half of them cheer like he just cured cancer and the other half sit there sarcastically. Whenever I watch Congress I become concerned that my country is being run by kindergartners.

The President is proposing all kinds of new jobs initiatives. They include tax cuts for new hires and wage hikes as well as eliminating capital gains taxes on small business investments. He also talked about putting people to work on the infrastructure of the future, which apparently centers around very fast trains. Somewhere in this section the President accused Washington of telling us to wait for decades and letting us fall behind other countries. He kicked Washington around quite a bit tonight. I couldn't agree more, but someone should tell the President he's been working in Washington for like five years now.

The President threatened to veto any financial reform bill that isn't "real reform". I predict a future press conference in which the President pulls a few muscles straining to try and define as "real reform" whatever steaming pile of garbage the Senate tries to pass off as reform.

I'm noticing a trend here. President Obama seems to be kicking the Senate's ass a little bit. In the first 20 minutes or so, he mentioned three separate bills that the House had passed and basically said the Senate better get their asses in gear. Later, he mentioned how a bill to create some kind of fiscal committee just died in the Senate, and how he's going to create the committee he wants by executive order instead. He even spent a lot of the section on bipartisanship hammering away at the Senate. Maybe I'll get my wish and he'll challenge the whole Senate to a fist fight.

The President proposed a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants. No jokes here, I really like that idea, I hope we do it. On the other hand, he also mentioned opening up more places to drill for oil. I've never bought the argument that our oil problem is that we just haven't been looking hard enough. Unless we find an infinite oil supply somewhere, any oil we do find only extends our deadline, so why not just come up with a better idea now?

Ha! The President just sarcastically said "I know there are some who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change". Easily my favorite moment so far.

"The best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education." I couldn't agree more. We also heard a lot about college education. Tax credits for college tuition and urging colleges to lower costs. I think the President will find that getting colleges to lower tuition costs will be about as easy as getting the Senate to get off their asses and do something.

The health care section didn't really move me too much either way. We got what was, as far as I could tell, basically the same sales pitch we've been getting about health care for the last six months. I have to say, even the President looked a little tired of talking about it. I'm not incredibly hopeful about health care reform right now.

The President started out the economy section by pointing out how the current deficit is mostly President Bush's fault, which got a weird, uncomfortable moment of laughter from one side of the Congress, I think it was the Democrats. Then we moved on to the much anticipated spending freeze (brrrrr). Another awesome moment. The President said the freeze won't take effect until next year, which drew some laughter from the Republicans. The President responded by very condescendingly saying "that's how budgeting works". I'm starting to remember why I liked this guy so much.

The President just hammered the Supreme Court's campaign contributions decision from last week, so then the nine of them had to sit there while everyone else applauded how much they suck. I'm not sure it was appropriate for the President to scold the Supreme Court in front of Congress on national TV, but they made a stupid decision and they deserved it, so there.

After about an hour, the President finally got to terrorism, security and underwear based weapons. Not much new information here, combat troops out of Iraq by August, stabilizing Afghanistan, nuclear weapons are bad, etc. But I also liked how he told Congress to stop arguing about security like little children. On the down side, he just said he was going to a summit in April to talk about securing all nuclear weapons in the world within four years. That sounds a lot like terrorists have four years to get some nuclear weapons before we lock them all up, I realize that's not a quick job, but still.

I had failed to realize how entertaining it would be to watch Biden all night. He's had times he tried to start clapping while the President was still talking, many other times when everyone else stood up to applaud about five seconds before he did. He kept nodding and smirking at everything. You could have watched this speech with the volume off and been thoroughly entertained.

There's something I was waiting for, the President just called for a repeal of don't ask, don't tell. He said "it's the right thing to do". I watched a lot of cable news today, and this detail had been leaked. There was a lot of speculation about how he was doing this to appease the left, or how it wouldn't help him with moderates. The President, during the speech, was the first person to mention that it's the right thing to do. How bad have our politics gotten when "it's the right thing to do" doesn't even enter the discussion of why a politician might be doing something.

If this speech reminded me of anything, it's why I liked the President so much as a candidate. He's funny, smart and engaging. He's incredibly condescending when he thinks people are being stupid (by the way, that's the second time I called the President condescending, it's not an insult, it's what people deserve when they say or do dumb things).

If there's one thing I need to be reminded of after this speech, it's that the President doesn't write the laws, Congress does. And the Senate will pass or not pass anything they damn well please. So we'll see if anything the President talked about tonight actually happens.

PS...I don't have the energy for the Republican response, but I predict he'll mention tax cuts at some point.

Corpocracy

Did I watch Conan O'Brien's last Tonight Show? Hell yeah I did! It was fantastic. Neil Young was awesome (Neil was awesome on the Haiti concert too. Is that the first time him and Dave Matthews played together? Did Neil travel back in time at some point so he could have a second career as Dave Matthews?). Plus, and I swear this is true, I had never heard Free Bird before, at least not that I can remember. I'd heard of it, but I'd never actually heard the song. Will Ferrell, by the way, has gotten to the point where I can't tell if he's kidding anymore, but he gets an A+ for breaking out the cowbell (I feel like we needed a little more of it). If I was Fox, I'd give Conan a blank check to go on my network at 11:30 starting in September and do whatever the hell he wants. If they do it right, he'll crush Leno and Letterman. I almost wrote a whole thing about it, but then I thought, who would I be convincing? Is there anyone who would say "no Sean, I don't think Conan has a big future in TV, Fox should just stick with Seinfeld reruns at night"? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous, Glenn Beck, my favorite TV crazy person, is at it again. Last week Glenn did a whole special about how communism is bad. Thanks Glenn, that's super helpful. I hadn't noticed all the communist countries failing miserably and disappearing, except Cuba and North Korea, who can't feed themselves. At one point, Glenn teased the next segment as the story of the holocaust that history forgot. That sounded unlikely right off the bat, but I stuck around to find out. Turned out he was talking about Stalin. Ummm, what? Can I get a show of hands from anyone who didn't know Stalin killed millions of people? Seriously, wow, kudos to Glenn for pointing out that Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Che Guevara were all bad guys (I know, people wear Che t-shirts, it's not because they support all the things he did, it's because they're stupid. Glenn, of all people, should understand what that's like).

With whom did Glenn think he was arguing? Does he think people were watching and thinking "sorry dude, I totally disagree with you about that Stalin guy, he seems super cool"? I know we have some communists in America (and that's the good part about America, you get to believe whatever you want, and tell people about it too, and I'm not allowed to send you to jail, or even punch you), but they're not the crazy killing people communists, they're more the sharing the wealth types. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks all America needs is Stalin. And I know Glenn would say that the wealth sharing communists always eventually turn into the killing communists. And if there was a huge wealth sharing communist movement in America and Glenn was talking about them and warning them that it's easy to get carried away, I wouldn't make fun of him.

Unfortunately, Glenn was talking about this because he continues to insist that President Obama and the majority of Congress are, in reality, communists/marxists/socialists/facists; maybe polygamists. OK, I made up that last one. But Goldmember Beck isn't the only one saying this, lots of "conservatives" are. I'm not sure why.

The bank bailout? As far as I can tell, here are the terms we gave the banks in return for giving them an oil tanker full of unmarked bills:
1) You have to pay us back, well most of it, or some, unless you really don't want to. We might suggest a new tax/fee to get the money back, but it'll never pass Congress because, um, you own Congress.
2) You have to come to Washington every once in a while and re-apologize for lighting the economy on fire and using the flames to light your cigars. You have to try and sound really sorry.
3) We're going to use you as a political pinata for a while.
4) There are some things we're requiring you to do with the money to help re-build the economy you broke, and no more huge bonuses (or, if you prefer, boni)...just kidding. Do whatever the hell you want.

Now, you could argue, since we don't produce actual things in this country anymore, that the banks are as much a means of production as anything. I'll buy that, especially because, the way our economy is set up, it's basically impossible to start any kind of business without a loan. But if you'd say that the government controls the banks now, you have a very odd definition of control. It reminds me of that joke about who aliens would think was in charge if they came down and saw us following dogs around and picking up their poop. The banks destroy the economy, the government gives them billions of dollars and they get super rich again while the rest of our economy still sucks. It's hard to argue a lot of government control in that equation.

Health Care?
I don't know what a final health care bill is going to look like, or if we'll get one at all. I do know that Republicans have been crying about a "government take over of health care". What? What part of forcing citizens to by insurance from private insurance companies at basically the same rates we're paying now constitutes a takeover? Believe me, I've argued that a government takeover of health care might be necessary, the way the government controls the military or police, because the private sector isn't doing the job on health care. If the government was taking over health care, I'd be among the first people to say so.

What about the auto industry bailouts?
Well, we're getting warmer at least. I'm not wild about taxpayers owning the majority of GM, especially since by taxpayers I mean the federal government. Because if I owned any piece of GM, we wouldn't be getting rid of the Saturn brand. Soon I'll have to find somewhere else to take my car for service, I don't like change. On the other hand, there are a couple of realities here worth noting. First, if we're going to bailout huge banks, why not also save some jobs for blue collar auto workers. If you'd rather have done neither, that's an excellent point and I couldn't agree more, but that ship had already sailed on the President when he took office. Second, if it takes a little government input to get GM to stop making cars that get 3 miles per gallon and explode whenever they turn left, then so be it.

On a somewhat related topic, last week, the Supreme Court ruled that any limit on corporate contributions for buying campaign ads in unconstitutional. They can't just give a candidate a sack of money, but they can buy all the ads they want (which is what campaigns use money for anyway). Great job Supreme Court, well done. For years, Congress has tried to find sneaky little ways to be corporate whores, now they can do it right out in the open, I'm so thrilled (by the way, Republicans seem to be supporting this decision, I'm not sure why they think it'll be better for them, Democrats can be whores too).

This doesn't really look like socialism or communism to me. It's actually sort of the opposite of socialism, the corporations are running the government. What do you call that? Congressman Clyburn, specifically in reference to the Supreme Court ruling, called it a corpocracy. I knew there was a reason I always liked him. I especially like corpocracy because, if you look at it really quickly, it kind of looks like crapocracy. Is this better than communism or socialism? Probably not. But it isn't socialism.

J...E...T...S JETS! JETS! JETS!

I was thinking I should probably just give up on picking football games. I'm awful at it. I was 1-3 last weekend and the one I got right only happened because I had to pick one team in a Saints-Cardinals game where I had no confidence in either team. So here's the deal. I'm picking the championship games. I thought maybe if i actually think about the games for a couple of minutes before I pick them, I might do better. And if I can't get at least one of these right, I'm never picking a football game again. At least not until next season.

First Up, Vikings at Saints
Saints Overview: I really don't know what to make of the Saints. They looked awful in their last three games, I mean really awful, losing to Tampa awful. Then they came out last week and just pounded the Cardinals. It was merciless. Even worse, nobody ever knows what to make of the Cardinals, so I don't know how to factor last week's game. I really thought the Saints had peaked, now I'm not so sure. They're like the Will Ferrell of football teams. I was sure that Anchorman was his prime, his finest hour. Since then each movie has been a little bit worse. I was convinced he'd never make a great movie again. Then, I saw his cameo in The Goods. Now, I think maybe he's got something left, I don't know what's next. Will Ferrell could still never make another good movie, or he could have one or two more classics left in him. I have no idea. That's how I feel about the Saints, I have no idea.

Keys For The Saints: They have to force Brett Favre to turn the ball over. Brett is like an alcoholic when it comes to turnovers. If he stays mistake free, then he's fine. But if you get him to make one early mistake, he goes on a binge like a college kid on his 21st birthday. He can't help himself, especially in the playoffs.

Also, whoever was wearing Reggie Bush's uniform last week, make sure you get him back for this one. Seriously, where has that guy been since he got drafted? Watching the Saints-Cardinals game last week, you could watch Reggie Bush and think "there's no way that guy's team loses".

Vikings Overview: The Vikings looked really solid against Dallas and even better against the Giants in week 17. I like everything about the Vikings except Favre (I think Favre is French for "look at me! look at me!"). And really, I only dislike Favre as a personality, his quality on the field is hard to argue with this season. Minnesota can run the ball, play defense and throw the ball to a number of excellent receivers. It's hard to find a hole there.

Keys For The Vikings: Stop the run, force the Saints to be one-dimensional and then pound Drew Brees like a bass drum. This defense terrorized Tony Romo last week, Tony was in full tantrum mode by the third quarter. It's possible he was actually crying at some point. It won't be quite so easy to rattle Brees, but it's doable. A day full of sacks and knock-downs equals a Viking victory.

Also, Antoine Winfield. There were times when he looked awful this year. In Minnesota's OT loss to Chicago, he got torched on the last play by some guy who should be playing in the CFL. It was unreal. If the bye week helped Antoine get healthier, I think he can shut down one side of the field and help keep Brees in check. If he's the same guy he was in Chicago, he'll spend the night being Drew's pinata.

Who Am I Rooting For? Saints, 100%. First of all, it would be fantastic for that city to see it's team get to the Superbowl. Second, the Saints are a much more likable team and way more fun to watch. Most importantly, I would pay almost any amount of money to not have to listen to two weeks of Brett Favre going back to the Superbowl stories. This will be unbearable, and I don't know anyone outside of Minnesota who would disagree with that.

Who Am I Picking? Sadly, I like the Vikings. I trust the Vikings' defense a lot more than the Saints' defense. New Orleans has a slightly better offense, but it's not that much better. The one thing that would scare me about picking the Vikings here is the fact that the game is in New Orleans. I told you about Favre being a turnover alcoholic, and the hostile crowd won't help with that, but I think Minnesota runs well early, Favre stays sober and they put the Saints away. Vikings 27, Saints 20.

Next, Jets at Colts
Colts Overview: Something about the Colts always makes me uncomfortable. They have a handful of great players, but they don't really have overwhelming talent. I've never been sold on the Colts defense. This year isn't any different. Tony Dungy is gone and I'm not sure Jim Caldwell has the power of speech. They won a lot of close games against pretty average teams. Plus, they quit on an undefeated season, which I still say means the football gods have something really terrible in mind for them. On the other hand, they were the best team in the AFC this year, so there's that.

Jets Overview: The Jets are a weird team. I can't stand watching their offense, but every once in a while something great happens and it's shocking. They have a defense that stops people, but doesn't force a ton of turnovers and has a tendency to fold at the end of games. Jets fans should be a little worried about that last part. Even last week, they didn't really stop the Chargers late. San Diego scored, then the Jets' offense was able to get a couple of big first downs and keep the ball until the clock ran out. I don't know what happens last week if the Chargers get the ball back, and I think Jets fans should be glad we never found out. Plus, the Jets were awful in the middle of the season. If the mid-season disaster Jets show up Sunday, this game gets ugly fast.

Keys For The Colts: Stop the Jets from running the ball all over the place, make Mark Sanchez throw the ball a lot and feast on the mistakes. That one is super obvious and easier said than done, but it's still what they need to do. The Colts also need to find a way to run the ball. It's not impossible against the Jets, and if they don't do it, the Jets will find a way to create problems for Peyton Manning and his passing game.

Also, try not to quit in the middle of the game. I know this is tough for the Colts, especially if they're winning, they're big on quitting. But really, they have to actually, ya know, try the whole time. If they beat the Jets, they get two whole weeks to rest before the next game.

Keys For The Jets: I think the biggest key for the Jets is coverage. Sure, Reggie Wayne might find himself on Revis Island this week, and maybe they can bracket Dallas Clark with a linebacker (Harris or Scott) and a safety (Rhodes if he's healthy). But what about the other side? What's to stop Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie from doing what many number 2 receivers have done against the Jets this year, run circles around Lito Sheppard. What happened to Lito, anyway? Has he been playing with two broken legs? If they can find a way to keep Manning from destroying the non-Revis parts of the secondary, they'll be in pretty good shape.

Also, if the Jets are down at the half, I say they send Rex Ryan into the Indy locker room to flash Peyton Manning. Wouldn't Peyton be paralyzed with terror for the next couple of hours, at least? I'm not calling this plan A, I'm just saying it can work if they run out of options.

Who Am I Rooting For? Obviously, I'm rooting for the Jets. First, I'm a New York guy. I'm not an active fan of every New York team, but I never root against a New York team unless it's playing another New York team I like more. Second, I've never liked the Colts, and watching them quit in week 16 didn't help. Most importantly, Peyton Manning may be my least favorite legitimately great athlete of all time. There's just something about him that makes me want to punch him in the stomach every time I see him on TV (which, by the way, is like every 4 minutes). I can't be the only one who feels that way, right?

Who Am I Picking? Tough one, close game, but I like the Jets. I don't care how many Superbowls he wins, I still think Peyton Manning is soft. The Jets' defense might not sack him a lot, but they'll hit him. The Colts' run defense is not that good, and the Jets will just keep pounding the run at them. Jets 21, Colts 17. I think that includes a defensive or special teams score from the Jets.

If I'm right, we get two weeks of Brett vs. the Jets stories, and I can't guarantee that won't force me to kill myself, or at least try to put myself into a two-week coma. But I'm a team player, and I picks em how I sees em.

What Can Brown Do For You?

Well, it's all over. Goodbye health care, goodbye socialism, hello Scott Brown. Oh, the poor Democrats, how will they ever get anything done when they only control 59% of the Senate and roughly just over 59% of the House? Why not just give up right now? You might say, "hey Sean, I seem to remember Republicans doing pretty much whatever the hell they wanted with quite a bit fewer votes, and I seem to remember it happening not that long ago." Nice try, but they had the Republican voodoo magic on their side (and by that, of course, I mean that you can say whatever you want about Republican policies, but, right now, they're like a billion times better at politics than the Democrats).

I watched Scott Brown's victory speech in Massachusetts and I learned a few things about our newest Senator:
1) I can see why people voted for this guy, he's super likable. I don't know a lot about where he stands on issues, though I can probably guess, but he knows how to relate to a crowd. Take away the rookie speech mistakes (like driving home the talking points a little too hard so they sound like they don't belong, like they're fake additions to his otherwise real speech, which he'll learn to stop doing) and he's really got something.
2) He has good political instincts. He spent a few minutes praising and thanking Ted Kennedy and his wife, it looked genuinely classy. Was it all fake? Maybe, but he did it and in today's politics, that's really all we expect. It's been a long time since we cared if anyone meant anything they said.
3) Scott Brown's daughter is pretty hot. You heard me.
4) Scott Brown wants to be the President.

(Before I continue, I should say that I am in no way suggesting Scott Brown would make a good President, or even that he'll definitely ever run. I'm just saying he wants to.)

How do I know that last part? First, he talked a lot about being the "independent" candidate and how the independent voice of Massachusetts elected him. We'll see if he actually votes independently when he gets to Washington (I'm predicting no, not even a little), but that's campaign talk that means "if you've had it with both parties, vote for me". Since the percentage of people in this country who've had it with both parties might get near 100% by 2012, that sounds like a pretty good strategy.

Second, he talked a lot about national issues. For example, he mentioned the upcoming terror trials in New York and how Constitutional rights protect us, not terrorists. Setting aside Mr. Brown's tragically simplistic understanding of how Constitutional rights protect us, can anyone tell me what that has to do with being the new Senator from Massachusetts? The answer is nothing, that whole section of his speech was a national campaign section. I could go on, but if you watched Scott Brown last night, I doubt I have to convince you.

So, how does he do it?
Step 1: Health Care. I know I said this election wouldn't impact health care, but I'm having second thoughts. I may have underestimated the cowardice of Democrats (impossible right? maybe not). I could see 6 or 7 moderate Democrats using this as an excuse to run scared from the health care bill. This would reset the issue and Mr. Brown would be in a unique position to show himself to be a reasonable Republican who will break from his party leadership and support a good bill that covers more people and regulates the industry. Normally a brand new Senator wouldn't be able to get in and be such a big part of such a major bill, but the Democrats will work with him if he's the only Republican willing to talk. The chances of Brown actually doing this? Like .0001%, but he should.

Step 2: Vote Against Earmarks. All of them, and don't even think about taking any for Massachusetts. In reality, this is pretty stupid. Earmarks are a big part of how we get federal money to the states, which is sometimes necessary. But guess what? Most voters don't know that, they think earmarks are all multi-million dollar highway rest areas named after members of Congress, and people hate earmarks. Plus, if Scott Brown does plan on running for President, he doesn't have to worry so much about what he gets for Massachusetts, because he's not planning to go back there. The chances of this happening may actually be pretty good.

Step 3: Don't Say Crazy Things. Don't call the President a socialist. Don't say the health care bill includes death panels. Basically, get away from the Glenn Becks of the world. Brown wants independents, you can't get them by standing next to the lunatics. People are looking for someone reasonable, someone who can respectfully disagree and offer a better idea.

Step 4: Learn. I still say this is Sarah Palin's biggest ongoing mistake. Look, she was pretty dumb in 2008, but they grabbed her out of the middle of nowhere and asked her to be the VP candidate, so what did we expect? She should have finished her term as Governor, disappeared for six months while getting a crash course in everything and then come back looking smart and knowledgeable compared to her earlier self, and ready to run. Instead, she released a book and decided to work for Fox.

I don't know if Scott Brown is stupid, but I know he's never been a national figure before and he'll have a lot to learn on national (and international) issues. He needs to go to school (ya know, metaphorically, he doesn't have time for actual school, he's a Senator now). Learn everything he can about foreign policy, national security and everything else a serious candidate needs to know about. Running for President isn't about being right all the time, it's about having an informed opinion all the time. He needs to resist the temptation to mock so-called "academic elites" and, instead, get a little elite himself. Being elite isn't a bad thing. Knowing more than your opponent isn't a bad thing. I don't know if Scott Brown can get to where he knows more than Barack Obama, but he can at least get to where he looks like he belongs on the stage with him.

These aren't the only things he'd need to do, but they're the first things that come to mind for me. Will these four things get him my vote? Hell no. The Republican platform has so many positions that annoy me right now, he'd really have to piss off the party to get me to consider him. But I'm just one vote. I'm talking about getting 50.1% of people to vote for him. Do I think that will happen? Probably not. But like I said, I'm not saying Scott Brown is going to be the next President, I'm just saying he wants to, so he's worth keeping an eye on.

The Search For Meaning

I've become fascinated by today's special election in Massachusetts. This is for the seat Ted Kennedy held since he took over for the guy who took over for his brother. JFK won it from a guy named Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., which sounds made up, but it isn't. Apparently, that was just one in a series of electoral ass kickings the Kennedys dished out to the Lodges. OK, this doesn't really sound that fascinating so far.

Actually, I'm not fascinated by the election so much as by the coverage. Fox is in the middle of some kind of teabagging orgy right now (wow, that must sound super dirty to anyone who doesn't follow politics and doesn't know what I'm referring to). MSNBC is in full panic mode, if this doesn't go well for them, Ed Schultz might set the building on fire.

I find myself asking one question. Why? Come to think of it, I find myself asking my TV some variation of that question quite a bit lately? Like this weekend when I was flipping around and wound up watching about 10 minutes of MTV's Jersey Shore. Why aren't those people in prison? Or at the very least, exiled to Saint Helena like Napoleon? I have no idea. Or, if you prefer something more related to today's topic, last Friday I heard Sean Hannity refer to the possibility of the Republican winning this special election as a "political earthquake, magnitude 9.9". I don't think Hannity was trying to offend anyone, it's a pretty widely used figure of speech, and I've got plenty of better reasons to call Sean a bad guy, but damn dude.

Let's meet the candidates first. The Democratic candidate is Martha Coakley. As far as I can tell, she was trying to become, possibly, the first U.S. Senator to win her seat without campaigning. If a bad campaign is a train wreck (hello John McCain!), the Coakley train didn't even leave the station until sometime last week. I've seen her make one speech, on Sunday. It was awful. The only thing I learned about her platform is that she likes applause. On top of that, her campaign apparently spelled Massachusetts wrong in an ad. At this point, I wouldn't vote for her if she was running against a plate of nachos, because at least the nachos would be delicious. She doesn't even have a good Boston accent. It's like the Democrats were trying to win with a degree of difficulty. Also, I think her campaign slogan "Red Sox suck, Coakley for Senate" may have been a mistake.

The Republican is Scott Brown. It seems like he emerged a few months ago from a laboratory that creates politicians. I know he owns a truck and plans to vote against the health care bill. Seriously, how bad have our politics become that a guy can become incredibly popular and exceed all reasonable expectations by pointing to one thing and talking about how he has no intention of doing it. I've seen him standing in front of signs that say "jobs", but I have yet to see evidence that he has a plan for how to create jobs. Except, of course, the Republican magic of tax cuts. People say every problem looks like a nail to a guy with a hammer. For Republicans, every tax cut looks tax cut a tax cut. TAX CUT!

Democrats will have you believe this election means next to nothing (I mostly agree with them, but it's funny how every political defeat is so meaningless if you ask the losing party. If Coakley was up by 30 points, something tells me Democrats would be squawking about how this is a firm endorsement of their agenda). Well, the one Martha Coakley speech I saw, she was introducing the President. He went to Boston on Sunday to campaign for her. By the way, this was a good move by the President. You could say if Coakley loses he'll look weak. But the truth is, if Coakley loses, he is weak. So I'm not really buying the Democrats' whole this isn't that important line when they're bringing the closer out of the bullpen. "Oh, this election isn't a huge deal, Barack just really wanted to see Boston in January".

Meanwhile, Republicans will tell you the fate of world rests on this election. Scott Brown will kill Obamacare and end socialism once and for all. If Scott Brown wins, then every Republican will win in November, all of them, no matter what. I was looking forward to what Barack Obama was going to do with the next three years, but apparently a Brown victory will force him to immediately resign in shame. Tough break. Especially since it would leave us with President Biden. I'm not sure what a Biden Presidency would look like, but I feel like we'd start blowing more stuff up.

What this election really means, of course, is that both parties, Democrats especially, can't take anything for granted at this point. Midterm elections are all about turnout, and turnout is all about energy. Democratic energy is pretty low right now, because even when we elect the people they want, they still don't get anything done. Republican energy is high right now, I'm not sure why. I think it has something to do with socialism, or death panels, or tea. I really don't know. I mean, I like tea, but I don't think I'd vote for Scott Brown.

More than anything else, I'm struck by what seems to be a desperation for every little thing to have meaning. In November, two Gubernatorial races and one upstate New York House seat were the end of the political world. Back then, the Republicans lost the House seat because the original Republican wasn't conservative enough for the teabaggers, so some empty vessel third party guy jumped in and the Democrats took a seat they had no business winning. Simultaneously, the Democrats had two awful candidates who ran two awful campaigns and they lost two Governors, as they should have. What we learned then, and what we're learning now, is simply that bad candidates make bad candidates, and they often lose.

Some say this Senate special election is more important because it's the 60th seat. Scott Brown can kill health care. Really? The leadership won't just find some other way to buy the 60th vote from someone? Olympia Snowe's always been on the fence, maybe we can give Maine 100 million dollars for lobster subsidies. Honestly, I'm not super worried about health care, especially since the bill's pretty crappy by now anyway.

What happens today isn't a referendum on the President or his agenda. It isn't a valid indicator of what will happen in November. I don't think it'll even have a great deal of policy impact. It's not like the Democrats knew what to do with 60 votes when they had them. All today's election means is that it's important to find good candidates who run solid campaigns. If both parties didn't know that already, I don't know what to tell you.

Mixed Bag

First of all, if anyone reading this hasn't donated to the Haitian relief effort yet, what exactly are you waiting for? Here are some links (I know some people get nervous about credit cards over the internet, I can tell you I've never had any security problems with the red cross website):
American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/
Yele Haiti: http://www.yele.org/
MSNBC has a good bunch of links: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835478/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/
OK, on to less important things...

I've noticed that many of my favorite ESPN.com writers sometimes do mailbags, where they answer questions sent by readers. Just now, I'm figuring out exactly why. Sometimes you sit down to write, but you don't really have anything to write about. Bummer. That's where the mailbag comes in. Unfortunately, I don't know if I have any readers, and I know they don't e-mail me. I'll have to improvise. So, here are some fake e-mails from made up readers.

Q: "I just watched Mark McGwire admit to Bob Costas that he used steroids. This is a two part question. First, is this even remotely news? Second, did you see him crying? Did you know that Mark McGwire was secretly a ten year old girl this whole time?" - Zack, Bayside High School
A: Excellent question! Of course it's news. And someone should tip Bob Costas off to some other breaking news stories. I have it on good authority that the sun might rise again tomorrow. Also, I took the ice out of my freezer a couple of hours ago, and it melted, all I have left is a bunch of water. I feel like I need to give a tearful interview about it. Seriously, I've never been less surprised by anything. I'll be more surprised tomorrow when I wake up and find that there isn't a monkey in my bathroom than I was when I found out Mark McGwire used steroids. As for the crying, if you're going to come out and try to cover your old lies with barely more believable lies, at least keep your dignity.

Q: "I read your NBA preview blog. Were you high when you predicted that the Washington Wizards would make the playoffs and Gilbert Arenas would have a great year and not do anything crazy? Did you have a serious concussion or some other kind of traumatic brain injury?" - Balki, Chicago/Mypos
A: No. Sadly, my brain was fully functional when I wrote that. I'm 30 years old and it's possible I've never been more wrong about anything in my life. I'll give Gilbert this, not many people could pull off doing something that hits a 10 on the what the f*ck meter and still have it not be that surprising. Well done sir.

Q: "I have a friend who innocently brought four guns to work, only because he didn't want to leave them home with the kids. Now, out of nowhere, he's suspended from work and being charged with a felony. I guess I should also mention that my friend has a reputation for being somewhat unstable, and any rational person would be terrified by the idea of him having even one gun. But come on, shouldn't everyone just give my friend a break?" - Philbert, Washington D.C.
A: Sorry "Philbert", I'm going to have to disagree. I don't think your "friend" is a bad guy. In fact, if I knew who you were talking about, I'd probably say he's someone I've always liked and rooted for. But, if I brought a gun to my office, I'd probably lose my job immediately, and nobody would give a crap. So I don't feel a whole lot of sympathy for your buddy.

Q: "What do you think about Charles Woodson winning Defensive Player of the Year?" - Jean Luc, um...Space, in the future
A: Let me just say this. If you offered the Packers Darrelle Revis straight up for Charles Woodson, even if Woodson was still young, they'd take that deal so fast you'd see a big Packer shaped dust cloud in the room where they were standing. Not only should Darrelle Revis have been the Defensive Player of the Year, he may also be some kind of Roman god. Did the Romans have a god of pass coverage? I feel like they should have.

Q: "Did you think it was weird for the NFL to have the Packers-Cardinals playoff game officiated by a group of blind chimps?" - A.C., Bayside High School
A: Lots of questions from Bayside today, they're huge fans of mine. I actually got 200-300 almost identical e-mails. I know it seemed that way, but I went back and watched the game footage in slow motion. The game was officiated by actual human referees, who, at times, appeared to have the full power of sight. Is it possible the NFL adapted my Umpire Idol idea and used it? I don't think so, my idea involved making sure the winners knew the rules of the sport. It's more likely a bunch of drunk tailgaters from the parking lot beat up the actual refs and took their uniforms. The NFL should beef up ref security for this weekend. By the way, what does the A.C. stand for?

Q: "What do you think of this whole Leno-Conan thing?" - Tyler, Paper Street
A: First, I think what I've always thought. Jay Leno sucks and I don't understand why anyone watches his show. I don't understand why NBC can't just let Jay and his 95 and over demographic go to ABC. Carson was the best, Conan is awesome. Leno is like the lettuce in my patented BLMB(bacon, lettuce and more bacon) sandwich. I'd say I'm boycotting Leno from now on, but I literally couldn't watch him less than I already do.

Q: "You picked the Cowboys and Chargers in the superbowl. You still feeling pretty good about that?" - Ron, San Diego
A: I feel awesome about my picks right about now. The Cowboys destroyed the Eagles and the Jets have their fans set up perfectly for the annual huge disappointment that no one saw coming. Plus, I think this is the week the football gods punish the Colts for quitting, which means if the Chargers can get by the Jets, they get a home game next week against Jets lite. Of course, if you read back to my Wizards/Arenas pick, you'll see that Jets and Vikings fans should be very happy I'm picking against them this week.

Q: "Speaking of your NBA preview, when you tagged the Nets as the most boring team in the NBA, did you fail to account for how interesting a team can be when it's that bad, or are you not the kind of person who finds 10 car pile-ups interesting?"- Hawkeye, fictional Korea
A: First of all, how did you know someone else also asked a question about my NBA preview? That's a little creepy. The answer is a little bit of both. I'm not surprised at how bad the Nets are. I also wrote that if you combined the rosters of the Knicks and the Nets, you still wouldn't have a playoff team. Even with the Knicks overachieving, the Nets are still bad enough to make that true. If you added all of the Nets to the Knicks, it might actually make the Knicks worse. At the same time, I probably underestimated how interesting this colossal failure would be. I have to admit to turning to Nets games a few times this year, just to see how bad it really is. I have yet to be disappointed.

Q: "Do you regret dumping the Islanders for the Edmonton Oilers now that the Oilers might be the worst team in hockey and the Islanders are not actually terrible and kind of fun to watch?" - ALF, Melmac
A: Not at all. This was a long term decision and I'm very happy with it. Have I seen an Oilers game all year? Absolutely not. Is it possible I may never see an Oilers game? Entirely possible, since only the Cup finals get televised on a real TV network. Are the Islanders' throwback blue uniforms on Saturday nights incredibly awesome? You're damn right they are. Having said all that, Edmonton is still the best hockey city I could find and I'm still moving there if I ever get rich and decide to move out of the U.S., so I'm fine with my choice.

Q: "Any thoughts on Pete Carroll going to Seattle?" - Al, Chicago
A: This is really a two part question. First, how do I feel about him leaving USC? I don't know yet. I get the sense USC football may get some nice NCAA sanctions for Valentine's Day. If that's the case, Pete's sudden exit gets a solid 8.5 on the douchebag meter. Otherwise, he had to leave sometime. Second, how do I feel about Seattle being the NFL job he finally took? That's the part I don't get, and the part that makes me think he had other reasons for leaving. Maybe he just got tired of waiting for Norv Turner to finally get himself run out of San Diego. Maybe he just really likes rain. I don't know, but the Seahawks were awful this year, and possibly the first team to quit on the season. Why is Pete Carroll taking over a team that quit before the Redskins? Before the Raiders? Before the Rams? I honestly can't figure it out.

Q: "Did you see the Sarah Palin-Glenn Beck interview?" - Jim, Scranton
A: I wouldn't have missed it for the world. It was like the black hole at the center of the galaxy of stupidity. You know what's really starting to strike me about Sarah Palin? Her incredibly high ratio of condescension to knowledge. I don't know if we've ever seen anyone who knows so little acting as if she knows so much. Everything she says, even the total nonsense, has this air of absolute certainty about it. It's really something. I still say she should have her own TV network. I also still say I'm moving to Finland if she gets elected President (which I also still say is impossible unless her campaign strategy includes some sort of military coup involving the Alaska National Guard).

Q: "Can you believe someone other than Mr. T is playing B.A. Baracus in the new A-Team movie?" - Danny, San Francisco
A: I absolutely cannot believe that. "Mr. T is dead" is the only acceptable excuse for that, and Mr. T is clearly not dead, I just saw him in a commercial. I don't know a whole lot about this Rampage Jackson dude, but I pity the fool who takes Mr. T's role.

Q: "I'm getting excited to watch the Olympics in February and I'm wondering if you can point me toward some of the best competitions to see?" - Mike, Long Island
A: This is obviously a trick question, no one is excited to watch the Olympics.

Q: "Everyone knows you don't care about soccer, and you're right not to, soccer sucks. But are you going to try to get interested in the World Cup?" - Rose, Miami
A: I think I might. Originally, I had decided to double boycott the World Cup on account of it being soccer and the Irish team not even being involved. Recently, I'm having a change of heart. I remember that I always enjoy the World Cup, even if I go back to making fun of soccer as soon as it's over. It's the best possible soccer you can see. Since the Irish are out, I'm rooting for England. I know Ireland and England haven't always gotten along but, as always, I'm a puzzle.

Poetry and Prose

Before we start, and this is sort of around the same topic as the rest of this post, it's in the neighborhood anyway. What's up with the Senate Majority Leader? First of all, I was surprised to find out that Harry Reid has the ability to say anything even remotely interesting or note-worthy. Second, it's not the racism in Harry Reid's comment about Barack Obama that struck me, so much as it was the inability to stop himself. Most people, if they accidentally said the first thing, about people being more comfortable with Obama because of his "light skin", would catch themselves and try to walk it back. Senator Reid, on the other hand, kept digging until he got to the part about Barack Obama not having a "negro dialect, unless he chooses to". I can't even begin to guess at what he meant by "negro dialect". Also, I know it's tough for some people to keep up with the politically correct lingo, but I'm pretty sure we all got the memo about "negro". For me, the real genius is the "unless" section. There's just so much there to be uncomfortable about, it's like a 7-layer dip of racial insensitivity. I may have to read that whole book. OK, on to the blog...

A broken campaign promise is the easiest target in politics. Especially now, when even local politicians can't say anything without being video taped. All you have to do is show the tape of the candidate making a promise followed by the new footage of the same person saying or doing exactly the opposite of what was promised, and there it is. Candidate Obama explicitly and repeatedly promised to have Congressional health care negotiations televised on CSPAN. Now, not only is the White House not pushing Congress to have televised negotiations, but they are, in fact, pushing Congress to skip conference committee negotiations altogether to get a bill to the President's desk as quickly as possible.

This was a silly and unkeepable campaign promise and candidate Obama, then a Senator, knew better(by the way, blogger spellcheck insists that unkeepable isn't a word. I say it's my blog and I decide what's a word). Cynically, I think the Obama campaign knew this was a good thing to promise, even if it couldn't be delivered. I think they also knew failure to deliver on this promise could be blamed on Congress. And I think they knew that while people liked this idea when they heard it, they wouldn't really get that upset when it didn't happen. Come to think of it, maybe I'm not the cynical one.

The fun part about this is even the Republicans aren't making too much noise about it, because they don't want to negotiate in public anymore than anyone else does. Even the political media gave it sort of a glancing blow, because they know any televised negotiations would be proceeded by secret private negotiations so all the tough decisions could be made before they got in front of the cameras. And I'm not really bothered either, because I think if the average person actually saw how political deals get done in this country, they'd be overwhelmed by the urge to sit down in a corner and cry for a while.

This whole little episode reminded me of the old saying about campaigning in poetry in governing in prose. I've actually thought about this a few times lately, since the Senate has spent the last few months embarrassing themselves on national TV whenever they get the chance, and I don't remember any campaign promises about the Senate floor looking like recess in a kindergarten. It used to be the House of Representatives was the arrogant, inexperienced, childish, power hungry idiots of Washington, and the Senate was supposed to be the grown-ups. Now where do I find the grown-ups? If the Senate is currently writing prose, it's a 3200 page novel with a picture of a giant middle finger on the cover.

I bring this up now because it's about to be campaign season again. That's right! Put on your votin' shoes, it's the 2010 midterm elections! I'm usually the kind of person who tells people to pay attention and vote, because it's important. And it should be important, the whole House and a little over 1/3rd of the Senate is up for re-election. Honestly though, I'm not excited, at this point I'm barely even interested. Why? I feel like I don't really care what any of the candidates are saying.

I'll hear Republicans tell me about tax cuts. Republicans are like South Park underpants gnomes when it comes to the economy. Phase 1: tax cuts - Phase 2: ? - Phase 3: thriving economy. Democrats will tell me about tax cuts too, but they'll be far less convincing. The national security debate will be similarly similar, but I won't care because, as far as I can tell, Congress' role in national security presently seems to be limited to bitching about it. I might even hear some Republicans tell me about big government liberalism, and maybe even socialism(my thoughts on that last thing are coming soon to an internet near you).

Right now, the most interesting thing for me about Republicans this year is whether or not they'll go back to illegal immigration as an issue. It's hard for Republicans to talk about immigration without offending Hispanic voters, which would be political suicide at the moment. On the other hand, I wonder if they can't help themselves. On top of everything, I'll have to endure the usual Republican talking points about values and misreading the second amendment, and more than a few tearful rants from Glenn Beck.

Impossibly, the Democrats are somehow worse. Why worse? Because I don't care what Democratic candidates say. The party as a whole can't govern worth a damn. I swear if you took 4 Democratic Senators to an IHOP and told them they couldn't have any food until they agreed on one style of pancakes for all four of them to eat, they'd all die of starvation. So Democrats can make a lot of promises, and some of them will be good ideas, but I have no confidence they can get anything done.

This isn't to say I hate both parties. I don't think either party is inherently bad, or full of bad people. One of the underlying points of the poetry and prose quote is the idea that you can't really govern in poetry, and you can't win by campaigning in prose. I've also commented here that we get the leaders we deserve, and we get the campaigns we deserve too. My point is only that I'm having a hard time getting interested in this next round of elections, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. I'll try my best to pay attention and care, but I think it'll be a lot like eating my vegetables. It's hard to care that much when it's so difficult to see any real correlation between campaign promises and governing actions.

Maybe I can start a third party. We're going to need a name though, and maybe some principles. Tell you what, I'll get back to you on that. Either way, I don't think my new, awesome third party is going to be ready for 2010. So, in the mean time, I have to try and muster an argument for getting invested in the upcoming midterm elections. Here's the best I can do...

The crazies on both sides of the aisle will be voting. Both parties have plenty of misguided lunatics, and they like to vote. So, if the rest of us stay home, we're pretty much letting the lunatics decide our future. Hmm, yeah I think that did it. I'm off to learn who's running against my current Congressman. I voted for him last time, and as far as I can tell, he's been pretty much inert since then (OK, that's probably not fair, but I watch as much political news as anyone and I haven't heard his name once in a year, so, at best, he seems to be voting as he's told and staying quiet). If the Republican in the race seems smart and reasonable, he's got a decent shot at my vote. If not, maybe I'll stick with the current guy, if I haven't heard his name at all, at least it means he hasn't done or said anything incredibly stupid yet, like, say, the Senate Majority Leader.

Hot Stove Reloaded

Two quick, unrelated comments before I jump back into the baseball off-season. First, Gilbert Arenas already gets my vote for athlete of the decade. For anyone who doesn't know the story, Gilbert was accused of brandishing an unloaded firearm in the Washington Wizards' locker room. This made some people, most notably NBA commissioner, and possible secret world overlord, David Stern, very sad. We were all waiting to see how long Gilbert's suspension would be when Agent Zero decided to lead his team in making fake gun motions with their hands during a pre-game huddle. This may be the single funniest thing I've ever seen happen in sports, and it's absolutely the first candidate and current front runner for moment of the new decade.

I have a question though. Where are all the right-wing gun nuts coming to Gilbert's defense now that some people are calling for him to be banned for life from the NBA for bringing an unloaded gun to a game? The gun was purchased legally, his only crime was bringing it into the District of Columbia, where the gun isn't registered. This seems right up the ring-wing's alley. Oh right, the second amendment was only meant to apply to white people, I always forget that. You know I'm right about this(and not just because I'm always right about everything). If this was a clean-cut, mid-western, white player, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter would be staging a sit-in at the next Wizards game, and you can't tell me any different. I know Gilbert Arenas is completely out of his mind and is quite possibly the very last person that should be armed, but the gun people don't know this, they're too scared of the NBA to find this out. And just to be clear, I'm not calling the NBA racist for suspending Agent Zero, they don't really have a choice and they'd do this to any player who did what Arenas did. I'm calling the gun people racists for suddenly being so silent about gun rights when it's a black guy.

Also, baseball just elected it's next hall of fame class. Congratulations to Andre Dawson, who deserves to be in both the baseball hall of fame and the nickname hall of fame (The Hawk, we don't have nicknames like that anymore, sports nicknames today suck). Big thumbs down to the voters for missing on Robbie Alomar. Unless you're old enough to have seen Rogers Hornsby or Eddie Collins play, Alomar is the best second baseman you've ever seen. How about batting over .300 nine times? How about 12 all-star games, 10 gold gloves, 4 silver sluggers and 2 world series rings? How about being a .300 career hitter even after decomposing on the field for three years with the Mets, Diamondbacks and White Sox? How about finishing in the top 10 in MVP voting five times? Or being a .313 career post-season hitter? Or 474 career stolen bases to go with his 210 home runs and 1,134 RBI?

How does he not get in? I don't understand how anyone sees the name Roberto Alomar on a ballot and thinks "no, not quite good enough." Is it really because he spit on an umpire once? Listen, I only played little league baseball, and if I'd punched every umpire I wanted to punch, I'd still be in prison. If he spit on umpires regularly, like once a week or something, then I'd say you have a case. But once? Come on. Moving on...

The Yankees traded for Javier Vazquez. I'm really torn on this one. I can see a lot on the positive side. First, I said last time the Yankees needed another starter, and Vazquez is better than any of the free agents still out there. Second, I've always been a big fan of Vazquez, and he seems to never get hurt, so he eats innings. Third, the Yankees got him for as close to nothing as you could get without just going to Atlanta and kidnapping him. Finally, he's coming off the best season of his life (15 wins on a mediocre team, lowest career marks for ERA and WHIP, 4th in Cy Young voting). All good things, right?

On the other hand, we've seen this movie before. And not just generically with pitchers coming over to the AL East from the National League, but with the actual Javier Vazquez. Here are Javier's ERA's and records in his four AL seasons:
2004 - 14-10, 4.91
2006 - 11-12 4.84
2007 - 15-8, 3.74
2008 - 12-16, 4.67
And the 2004 season was with the Yankees. This seems like a bad idea, right? If you caught chlamydia from a hooker six years ago, would you go back to the same hooker now just because she looks a lot cleaner these days? Probably not. And yes, I'm saying what Javier Vazquez gave the Yankees in 2004 is the baseball equivalent of chlamydia (I think this is a pretty good analogy, it's not the absolutely worst thing that could happen, but that doesn't make it good). In 2010? I think he can give the Yankees some solid innings, but I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed for more than 13-15 wins or an ERA below 4.

The Mets signed Jason Bay. I was mildly surprised by this. Which is handy, because Mets fans will be mildly entertained by Bay this year, and the team will be mildly improved. Bay can drive in runs, but it's not a magic trick, people have to be there for him to drive in. He's not a good outfielder, so I'm not sure Citi Field (roughly the size of Staten Island) is the best place for him. Basically, he makes the Mets better, but not that much better. He can't carry a bad team, but he can help a good one. Is the guy I just described worth $66 million over four years? I feel like he isn't. Especially when the Mets still need pitching.

The Mariners stayed busy, and they've officially become the team I'm watching closely. I loved the Milton Bradley move for them. Yes, now they have to sign somebody else to take over after Milton goes crazy. But until he goes crazy, he's the other bat I thought they needed. On the other hand, they traded Brandon Morrow to Toronto for Brandon League and a young outfielder. If the young outfielder turns out to be something, great. Until then, I'm not sure I get this move. This is a perfect example of a franchise drafting a guy with talent, completely destroying him to the point that they can't see ever getting anything out of him and then trading him for not that much in return. This happens a lot in baseball.

If I were a Red Sox fan, I wouldn't be wild about what the Sox are doing. Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron? Cameron is pretty far past what was a mediocre prime to begin with. Beltre is a better player than people think, but not that much better. People say the Beltre signing frees up Mike Lowell for a trade. Trade Mike Lowell? For what? He's about to turn 36 and he basically lives his life in surgery. I still like Boston's pitching, but I'm not crazy about their line-up right now, and it looks like they're basically done.

Hideki Matsui and Fernando Rodney to the Angels: Blah. Matsui came pretty cheap, but still.
Brandon Lyon and Matt Lindstrom to the Astros: Picking up two closers doesn't help you if neither one of them is any good.
Mike Gonzalez and Kevin Millwood to the Orioles: I think the AL East could actually make Millwood cry. Mike Gonzalez scares me a little as a Yankee fan, luckily he's only healthy for about 4 games a year.

Finally, Matt Holliday stayed in St. Louis. I was pretty happy to see this. The Cardinals are a legit franchise, but they don't have all the money the Yankees and Red Sox have. I'm glad to see a big name guy sign on to stay there and play with Pujols. I think they probably overpaid a little for a guy who's probably a little overrated. I also think they're going to need a left-handed bat at some point. Still, I'm generally pretty high on this move. I'm a Yankee fan, but I'm also a baseball fan, I don't want one team to have all the good players, it's no fun that way.

Pro Wrestling Re-Mix

A month or so ago I watched three hours of professional wrestling, made fun of it and very much angered at least one wrestling fan with whom I went to high school. I decided, pretty soon after that, I would have a second go at pro wrestling. Reason one, maybe I just caught the WWE on a bad night. I've seen bad episodes of my favorite shows, so why not give it another chance. Reason two, there's a whole other wrestling company I'm taking a look at tonight. Reason three, if it's bad again, it makes for good comedy.

Well, I'm told by TV and various facebook posts that tonight is a big night for WWE (the return of Bret Hart, hey, I remember him) and, new kid on the wrestling block, TNA (debut of Hulk Hogan, I'm going to take a guess and say that his skin will look leathery). Add to that the fact that I'm willfully ignoring all crappy and meaningless BCS bowl games (that means all BCS bowl games) and it's about -52 degrees outside, and this is really the perfect night to stay in my apartment and re-visit wrestling.

I'll be starting with TNA, which gets my full attention for an hour. The last two hours I'll be jumping back and forth and we'll see who does a better job of holding my interest. I'm envisioning this as more difficult than when I jumped between cable news channels. You can jump into a cable news show at pretty much any point and already know what they're talking about. Keith Olbermann says Republicans are bad, Glenn Beck says the Communist/Socialist President and his army of marxist zombies are planning to steal your wallet while you sleep. They're also usually talking about roughly the same things. I expect the two wrestling companies to be putting on very different shows that may be hard to follow if I jump in and out. I guess I'm saying, this could be fun or a mess.

Before I start, TNA's lead-in on Spike TV is MMA. As I tuned in, the winner of the last fight was explaining his winning strategy. "Well, I punched him in the face as hard as I could, he didn't seem to like that one bit, so I punched him more until that ref guy made me stop." I may be paraphrasing. Anyway, on to TNA...

TNA has clearly set its hype phasers to kill, opening with a montage about the history of the company followed by the announcers trying to set this up as the most important moment so far. If they deliver, that's a good opening, if not, this could get ugly. The first thing I see is Taz. I'm already pretty pumped, he's doing commentary. I'd be even more excited if he was wrestling, but I think he broke his neck like 7 times or something, so I'll settle for commentary.

The first match seems to be some kind of steel cage battle royal deal. The cage has a roof, but with a hole in the top, and I think the winner has to climb out of the hole. I won't get into all eight guys, but here are a few things I noticed. One of the guys is named suicide, another is called homicide. I feel like we shouldn't let them near each other, it seems like something bad would happen. Also, some other guy is doing a dead on Macho Man impression. They didn't let him talk, but it was visually perfect right down to the music. Also, the TNA ring has six sides. That's 50% more sides than WWE, so there's that.

The cage they're using has noticeably thick red bars, so it's kind of hard to see what's going on inside. Sounds like good stuff though, lots of crashing followed by cheering from the crowd. There's a lot going on here. First, that homicide dude used a weapon, which apparently ended the match in a no contest. I thought there weren't any rules in a cage match? This caused the crowd to loudly chant "this is bullshit" for like two minutes, with Spike bleeping out the "shit" part each time, so we heard about 70% of the show for a little while there.

Then, in comes Jeff Hardy from the crowd. According to the internets, Jeff was last seen in WWE, and a police station near you. Jeff laid out homicide (with a steel chair, that's what I'm talking about!) and then climbed on top of the cage. Maybe I'm just in a better mood tonight, but I feel like that first segment was like a billion times better than anything WWE gave me last time.

They're really hyping Hulk Hogan. First of all, they're showing us pictures of what's supposed to be Hogan's limo, and we're supposed to believe he has a police escort. More importantly, do people really still get excited about seeing Hulk Hogan? Wasn't he constantly on VH1 for like three years?

Hey! Hey! It's Kevin Nash. Nash and Hall were easily my favorite wrestlers in the 90's. I'd ask where Scott is, but I have a feeling I don't want to know. Long-winded interview from Nash that was somehow still entertaining, that's what I remember. He finished by telling us Hogan isn't alone. 50 bucks says it's Eric Bishoff (editing note from later: Bingo!). A well placed women's division match gave us all a nice break to get some food or something.

TNA isn't screwing around tonight, Ric Flair just showed up. I was never a fan of Flair when I was a kid, but the crowd seems pretty psyched. Also, apparently Mick Foley works for TNA. I thought he was another new guy when I saw him, but the computer set me straight on this one. He's trying to get to work, but the bosses don't want him disrupting Hogan's big night. I'm expecting a number of Foley trying to get into the arena bits, and from what I remember about Foley, they could be really funny or totally awful. Good deal.

OK, the crowd does not like this Lashley guy. That seems to be working out pretty well, because his wife just told us Mr. Lashley is leaving TNA, so everyone's a winner. Next up, three of the female wrestlers playing poker, I'd wager all my chips on this turning out to be some kind of strip poker deal. Nailed it! I should write TV. Before they started stripping, they spent a minute or two playing stupid, it was actually pretty funny (the girl with six cards announced she had the A of hearts and the guy with the hat of hearts, I swear it was amusing live). Also, two of these girls appear to be legitimately good looking, which is about 1 and a half more legitimately good looking girls than I saw at WWE.

They appear to be aiming for the Hogan arrival right as 9PM comes and people are tempted to flip over to WWE. If it weren't for the giant red bars blocking the first match, this first hour would be a flawless performance from TNA, I'm really impress...Hey! Hey! Hey Yo! It's Scott Hall! And that little guy I never liked, something-pac, let's just call him Ringo. Apparently they're not letting Scott into the show right now, they'd better not be screwing with me. A minute or two later, we see Hall and Ringo enter through the crowd, I couldn't be more entertained right now (this is where the people who take this too seriously will say that we haven't had any actual wrestling on this show in like 45 minutes, and I'll say I don't care).

Hogan came out to something extremely similar to the old NWO music. On a scale of 1 to 10, my interest level is at about a 13 right now. The Announcer Who Isn't Taz (no way I care enough to find out his name, we'll call him TAWIT for short) says there aren't words for this moment (that didn't stop him and Taz from trying). Hogan talked for a minute and then invited Hall and Ringo into the ring. I'm starting to get the sense these two aren't staying long (I hope I'm right about Ringo and wrong about Hall).

This went on for a while. We started with Hogan, then Hall and Ringo came in (and I'm pretty sure Hall ruined the next surprise, it's nice to have him back). Hall and Hogan didn't seem to be getting along, so Nash came out. Nash didn't seem happy with Hogan either, and then out came Eric Bishoff. Bishoff said everyone has to earn their spot in TNA, which prompted Nash, Hall and Ringo to leave. Hogan and Bishoff talked a little longer about things changing, the segment ended with Sting in the rafters looking uneasy. Finally a commercial followed by another women's match, and I can check in on WWE.

I wandered in just in time to see Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels making up and hugging. Then Hart called out Vince McMahon, who promptly failed to appear. After a commercial, we found out that Vince would call Hart out when he feels like it, later tonight. They have a women's match too, blah, although the first three out are also more attractive than anyone I saw last time.

Back to TNA, they still have the women's match going on. I'll give them this, the TNA women actually seem like they can wrestle a little. Quick flip back to WWE, and it's the Miz. I think the same thing about him I thought last time, really good catch phrase wasted on a really unlikable guy. Meanwhile, TNA has new women's tag champs. They also went back to the card playing girls, who weren't nearly as funny as an hour ago, but were, as promised, less clothed. They were joined by a guy, I know he used to be a WWE guy, I can't remember his name, Val or Cal something. Oh, Val Venus, right. That's a tough spot for ole Val. We spent the first hour seeing all the biggest stars of the 90's arrive one by one, then in hour two we're supposed to get excited about the walking penis joke.

Foley still can't get into the TNA arena, and neither can the Nasty Boyz (don't ask me to describe those two, either you know who they are, or you're better off). Next up for TNA, a tag match featuring Raven, who I've always been a fan of. That match ended immediately. Then we meet the Pope, who refers to himself as "Pope" quite often. Pope gets interrupted by some other guy, I think I'm supposed to know who he is, but I can't place him. Where are the announcers when you need them? Oh, there's Taz. Apparently that guy's name is Orlando Jordan, I still don't know who he is. The Pope gets a 6 out of 10 for mic skills, but his music gets a 10 out of 10.

Back to WWE and Hart is talking to Chris Jericho. I came in on the tail end of Hart insulting Jericho. I miss the funny Jericho, can we bring him back? Somebody start a telethon. Then we get DX. Last time, they were having some kind of leprechaun problem, but now they seem to have made up and they're hanging out with the leprechaun. They have that Santino Marella guy doing a Jericho impression. He was funny last time and he's funny now. Unfortunately, his day ends with a leprechaun attack.

Guys are getting attacked backstage at TNA, it's a real whodunit. I just noticed something funny, TAWIT is wearing a full tuxedo and Taz is wearing a bright orange jacket. That just struck me as hilarious for some reason. Next, we're gonna hear from Jeff Jarrett. Meanwhile, WWE has DX vs. Super Giant Man (they call him Big Show, I say my name is better) and Jericho.

We're in the middle of hearing from the TNA champion, AJ Styles, when Bishoff comes in and tells him he's defending his title tonight. AJ seemed not unhappy about that. I have to hand it to Bishoff, he's good on TV. The crowd is welcoming Jarrett back. Which begs the question, where'd he go? I did some research and found out he left after shacking up with the ex-wife of Kurt Angle (another top TNA wrestler). Except, unlike most wrestling stories, this appears to have actually happened, in real life. I'm starting to feel like I should have been watching this show before tonight. Jarrett talked for a while, but then Hogan told him he has to earn his spot like everyone else. I didn't love that segment, even if Hogan just set the record for most times saying brother in two minutes, but it ended with Foley finally getting in.

Meanwhile, DX beat Super Giant Man and Jericho, and SGM doesn't look too happy about it. Apparently this means Jericho can't come to Raw anymore. Right after, Randy Orton offers to help ole Vince Mcmahon deal with Bret Hart later. How interested was I in this? I went back to TNA before we found out Vince's answer.

Back at TNA, this Samoa Joe guy looks like he gets to the gym about as much as I do. He's wrestling Abyss, who's like a bigger, weirder Mick Foley. Seriously, I always thought the only thing between me and a pro wrestling career is my refusal to get into shape. Samoa Joe has given me hope. And he won the match by using a chair (once again, that's what I'm talking about! Did TNA steal all WWE's chairs?) Also, Lashley's wife wants a meeting with Hogan and more guys got beat up backstage.

Sidenote: This blog is already long enough, but I have to mention this. I'm flipping between Spike TV and USA. One of the channels in the middle is FX, which is currently showing Snakes On A Plane. Next time you have the opportunity, you HAVE to see this movie. It's even better on regular TV with the curses dubbed out. Here's an example of one of my favorite dubbed lines; "I'm sick and tired of these monkeyfighting snakes on this monday to friday plane". It's easily the funniest movie ever, and it's not even close.

Back to WWE, and one of the few bright spots from my last WWE adventure is the now the champion. I'm a big fan of Shamus. Big Irish guy, complete with realistic accent and cool music. And he just completely destroyed some guy. He spent more time staring menacingly at the crowd than he did wrestling. I think that might be all we see of the champ tonight. Oh well. On the other hand, I haven't seen that Cena guy at all, which is perfectly fine with me. Win some, lose some.

Two straight things from TNA I feel like we didn't need. First, Jeff Hardy leaving the arena and giving a painting to some teenage girls. (Huh?) Then, the Nasty Boyz wrecking team 3D's (formerly the Dudley Boys) locker room (Why? It's like they're trying to start a rivalry, but there's no way those two guys are in any kind of wrestling shape). Time for the TNA main event, Styles v. Angle.

Like last time, I haven't commented too much on the actual wrestling, because I don't know that much about it. But I'll say two things about this TNA main event. First, about three minutes in some masked guy randomly attacked the champ. I assume they're going somewhere with that. Second, I have to say the wrestling from TNA is pretty solid, much faster and less plodding than the WWE matches. And really, that's a pretty good description of the difference between the two shows as a whole. There's just a lot more going on with TNA. After Styles won, they finished with Foley confronting Bishoff, then getting his ass kicked by Nash, Hall and Ringo. Hogan comes in at the end and the audience is left wondering if Hogan really has a handle on Bishoff and the old NWO guys. Well done all around.

The WWE main event is the Vince McMahon/Bret Hart conversation. Next week's Raw guest host is Mike Tyson. Here's a question I thought I'd never have an answer to. What would have to happen to make me not interested in seeing Mike Tyson on live TV for two hours? Anyway, Vince and Bret talk for a while. Vince is thanking Bret and saying nice stuff, presumably something bad is about to happen. And there you go, Vince gives Bret the ole groin kick. We finish with a shot of Bret looking angry, but frankly, not as angry as I'd look if I just got kicked in the groin.

Let's do some final grades. WWE gets a C-. They get points for the Irish champ and creative use of a leprechaun, but what I saw of the show wasn't any better than last time. Granted, I didn't see a ton of WWE tonight, but that's because TNA was much better at holding my interest. TNA gets an easy A-. Three solid hours of TV. Even the crowd was better. You can say it isn't a fair comparison, huge night for TNA, regular Monday for WWE. I'll grant you that. But still, I saw two shows tonight, and they weren't in the same league, not even close.