Author: mjmadaio
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A Thought on McNabb vs. T.O.
I live in the Philadelphia area and I’m an Eagles fan, and although I’ve heard about McNabb and T.O. for months on end, I never really understood where this whole spat came from in the first place… until today.
ESPN spent about 17 hours this morning talking about the T.O. suspension, and it was during NFL Countdown that I finally understood it. Terrell Owens was upset because last year, in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, the Eagles, including McNabb, were adament that they could win the game without their star receiver — and here is the key — who was injured and not supposed to play!
Were they supposed to say they could not beat the Patriots without T.O.? All evidence (medical and otherwise) suggested that T.O. would either not return at all or, if he did return, would only be able to play sparingly.
Yep, normally athletes going into a game where they are underdogs tell the press that they can’t win. The Eagles definitely should have said, “nope, you’re right — we just can’t win if he doesn’t play. If he can’t go, we shouldn’t even play the game!”
It’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. (At least until I heard Michael Irvin agree with him.)
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Tracy McGrady Adidas Commercial — What’s Not “Right” Here?
File under… “Yes, these are the things I notice”
So I’m watching this new Tracy McGrady Adidas commercial, the one where two kids are narrating, telling a story about how McGrady wins the game at the last minute. After making a clutch free throw, he lights on fire and drains a jumper, then proceeds to grow bat wings and can a three-pointer over the entire crowd at the buzzer… LEFT HANDED. (He’s a righty.)
‘Course, there was no mention of this left-handed feat, so I was pretty sure this was unintentional. Turning to my beautiful TiVo, I went back and watched the sequence again. Every other shot in the commercial was right-handed. In fact, when they show T-Mac rising up for that last-second shot, he’s squaring up right-handed. Clearly, for some reason they flipped the view digitally after the fact, probably because it just looked better that way. And they figured no one would notice.
This doesn’t really affect the commercial at all, so I’m not sure why I took such interest. I guess the answer is that yes, these are the things I notice.
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Should the Drinking Age be 18?
Obviously we all felt that way when we were 18. Even as an adult, however, Beer Expert Lew Bryson makes an interesting argument for the changing of these laws. Although some of his logic is flawed or stretched, I generally agree that 18 would be a better solution.
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LGM – Wealth Building Program Scam
“Your ship has just come in!! And it’s cargo is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
WOULD YOU LET US SEND YOU OVER 1 MILLION DOLLARS? YES, IT IS 100% LEGAL, READ THIS 3 TIMES.
… Just mail the entire back page, $20.00 certified check, money order or cash and 60 first class stamps to:
LGM
P.O. Box 189
Middlesex, NC 27557Do I really need to say that this is a scam? Unlike the Pat Haines Postcard, this one is abundantly obvious, but based on the response we got to the Haines post, I felt obliged to comment on this ridiculous piece of junk mail I received today.
If you’ve found this page, please don’t send these people any money. You won’t see a dime in return. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
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Memories of Sleepaway Camp
In between 8th and 9th grade and again between 9th and 10th grade, I attended the NewSport Experience Camp in Kents Hill, Maine. Contrary to other sleepover camp experience that I had in my childhood, I loved this place. It was all about sports and many of my friends attended with me. Although I have a lot of hazy memories about what we did at camp, what it looked like, and who I met, I am able to recall a few specific facts with complete certainty:
1) Shinehead’s “Gimme No Crack” – Previous to downloading it a few months ago (solely for the nostalgic value), I did not hear this song before or after attending NewSport even one time. I have no idea where it came from or why we thought it was such a good song, but we listened to it constantly. It’s actually a preposterous song, but one worth having around just to see if anyone you know has ever heard it (I’ve yet to find someone).
2) Geto Boys’ “Gangsta of Love” – When I heard this years later, I was quite disappointed. It seems that blending a cheesy 70’s tune with gangster rap should produce something a bit more fun, but this song really isn’t that great. (Didn’t stop us from listening to it every frickin’ day.) I suppose, however, that this could be part of the reason I liked the Steve Miller Band so much in high school, particularly “The Joker”.
3) Guns N’ Roses – “Civil War” – One night my camp roommate Dennie and I were listening to the radio when we were supposed to be in bed, and we heard the debut of the new Guns N’ Roses song (which we’d anxiously been anticipating for some time) on some Maine radio station. The remarkable thing about this is that Use Your Illusion I & II did not come out for some 14 months after this fateful night, and I did not hear this song again (this is pre-internet, remember) until the day I walked from my parents house to the closest record store (because my mom would not drive me) to pick up the much anticipated double release. I suppose I should have taken this delay as a sign of things to come.
4) Lauren Young – At a dance with some neighboring girls camp (NewSport was all guys), I danced with Ms. Young for several songs. I may have claimed to kiss her to several people over the course of my life, but this is not even remotely true. I wouldn’t have had any idea how to do something like that. My friends all claimed that Lauren had purple (or green, blue, w/e) hair, but I cannot confirm this. As is common in junior high school dances, it was quite dark. I may have written to Lauren once or twice, but I really don’t remember. I can, however, picture the little scrap of paper on which she wrote her address. She had nice handwriting.
5) Pete McKernan – He was my favorite counselor at NewSport, just an all-around great guy. He also happened to be the son of the Governor of Maine. Pete died a few years later, I heard through the grapevine. I don’t know much else. R.I.P. Pete.
In conclusion, it sure is interesting what you remember about these experiences.
BTW, if NewSport sounds fun, check out Camp GoodSport, run by the same guy.
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Reunion on FOX
I really wanted Fox’s Reunion to be my favorite new show. Looking back, its hard to imagine how I could have been excited about something so crappy, but at the time (mid-summer), when Fox started running promos, it seemed like it was destined to be my new fav. After all, it had teen/college drama, an unraveling mystery and a unique gimmick (each episode is a different year) — it couldn’t miss, right?
Wrong. Reunion is terrible. And not even terrible in a One Tree Hill this-show-is-so-absurd-but-I-love-it-anyway type of way, just plain terrible. The story sucks (is Sam really that great?), the acting is bad, and the writing is even worse. (Actually, in these types of situations, I think acting ends up taking the blame for issues that are really caused by writing. Take Mathew St. Patrick, for example: a consistently solid performance in Six Feet Under, yet consistently cheesy and bloated in Reunion. Just awful dialog.)
The other thing that kills me about Reunion is that they explain the premise of the show before every episode. It’s kind of like a bad joke — if you have to explain it, perhaps it just isn’t that good in the first place. Just like the idea behind this show.
Shamefully, I set up a TiVo season pass before the season even started, and since there really isn’t anything else on Thursday at 9, I’ll probably keep watching this trash (until Fox inevitably cancels it and puts me out of my misery). And to make it even worse, perhaps the greatest single timeslot standoff of my lifetime occurs just one hour before, with The O.C., Alias and Smallville all competing for my eyes and TiVo space.