Ok, I am a little late in posting my thoughts on what teams will end up where this year but it is early in the season so it should not matter. I am so glad baseball is back in full swing. I feel a bit lost when football ends because I do not follow the NBA or basketball in general (I do like the March Madness hoopla though).
The numbers in parenthesis are the playoff seeding order.
Baseball Rocks!
NL East
NY Mets (2)
Atlanta (4)
Philadelphia
Florida
Washington
NL Central
St. Louis (3)
Milwaukee
Houston
Chicago
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
NL West
Los Angeles (1)
San Diego
Arizona
San Francisco
Colorado
AL East
Boston (3)
New York
Toronto
Baltimore
Tampa Bay
AL Central
Minnesota (1)
Detroit (4)
Chicago
Cleveland
Kansas City
AL West
Los Angeles (2)
Texas
Oakland
Seattle
NL Playoffs
Los Angeles over Atlanta (Wild card)
NY over St. Louis
NY over Los Angeles
AL Playoffs
Minnesota over Detroit (Wild card)
Los Angeles over Boston
Minnesota over Los Angeles
World Series
NY Mets over Minnesota Twins 5-1
NL MVP:
Carlos Beltran (NYM) 44 HR 129 RBI
NL Cy Young:
Derek Lowe (LAD) 21-5 2.89 ERA
NL Rookie of the Year:
Chris Young (AZ) .280 19 HR 74 RBI
AL MVP:
Mark Teixeira (Tex) .297 51 HR 136 RBI
AL Cy Young:
Justin Verlander (Det) 19-6 3.16 ERA
AL Rookie of the Year:
Alex Gordon (KC) .298 27 HR 88 RBI
While clearing off my desk of random paper and receipts this morning, I decided to take the plunge into the first drawer of my filing cabinet to empty it of paper that has cluttered it up for a few years. The main offender in question is movie tickets. I save them after I see a movie. I have hundreds since the late 90’s. They document my life, my taste, my friends, my girlfriends… everything. I was not ready to look into this darkness. Printed names on stubs… All About My Mother, Mostly Martha, Harry Potter… they fly at me and remind me what I am not and what I am. I will try not to be depressed.
Marty got the sympathy vote.
There, I said it and I think a lot of you out there might think the same thing. Of the five films nominated for Best Picture, I would rank it no higher than third or even fourth. Still, it is nice to see him get an award that should have been given to him twice before.
Helen Mirren gave the best acceptance speech of the night- elegant, reserved, respectful, charming & most of all gracious.
I hope Clint Eastwood really forgot his glasses up there when he was speaking of Ennio Morricone. He looked bad, sounded bad & I believe he knew it.
I liked how the presenters read the script dialogue when presenting the screenplay nominations.
I disliked how the Academy presented the best picture nominations. Please go back to a blurb about the film and then showing a scene from the movie. This was a big, big let down.
Again, the Academy botches up the acceptance speech timing ritual. Let these people speak! This after show speech/web cam thing is for the birds. The spontaneity is gone when you do it that way. Block the show out for 5 hours and be done with it!
Ellen did a great job hosting. I wish there had been more of her in the show.
It is that time of year again. All the guests are dressed to the nines (some of them to the eights and even worse if they wear frumpy dresses or badly tailored suits) eagerly waiting to hear their name called to grab the golden phallus--- err, sorry I meant the golden statue.
While I have favorite performances, movies and things I liked about movies from last year, my picks for the Oscar’s this year are picks only and not favorites (Unless, heh heh, I say they are).
Best Picture
Toughest category to call this year. Of the five up for the award, I liked Little Miss Sunshine the best from last year (see: December 2006 archives - Movies, Best of 2006). I think it will follow in the path of Crash which came from nowhere last year to pick up the award.
Another tough call. Clint Vs. Marty and I believe they cancel each other out. Clint made one great movie (Letter From Iwo Jima) & one good movie (Flags of Our Fathers). Honestly, I think Letters kills The Departed and Flags is about equal to Marty’s film. If Clint were to win one more directing award it would put him way into the stratosphere of the who’s who in directing realm. Now don’t get me wrong about Marty. I like his work for the most part. He was ripped twice for best picture (Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People & Goodfellas to Dances with Wolves) & some would argue a third time when he lost out for Taxi Driver against Rocky… Network was better than both of them. My fear is that Marty is going to get the sympathy pick for getting screwed a few times (though I think he may eventually have to wait for the Lifetime Achievement Oscar). Stephen Frears did a good job with The Queen, but that movie is all Helen Mirren all the time so he is out. That leaves Paul Greengrass for United 93 and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu for
Would love to see where the 2nd and 3rd place numbers were against Helen Mirren. If there is a sure thing this year for the Oscar’s it is Mirren’s performance in The Queen. Streep & Dench have their awards while Cruz and Winslet will have to wait a while longer (not much longer I think for Kate Winslet). Nothing more to say. Mirren is a lock.
This is one of the other tricky categories. On one hand, you have Forest Whitaker winning every award possible leading up the big night (I think the girl scouts gave him and award as well, or maybe they sent him some mint cookies). On the other hand, you have Lawrence of Arabia himself: Peter O’Toole. And, he is waaaaaaaaaaaay over due for an award. Nominated seven time previously for pictures such as: The Ruling Class, Becket, The Lion in Winter & the afore mentioned Lawrence of Arabia. My problem here is that he did a great job in a lackluster film but because he has been snubbed a few times (How in the HELL did he not win for Lawrence of Arabia!!!!) so the sympathy vote is possibly being called in for him. As for the others- Gosling is in a movie that no one has seen (has not played where I live and everything comes here), DiCaprio was nominated for the wrong role & Will Smith was in a People’s Choice type of film that many in the Academy will not likely vote for. That leaves
Jennifer Hudson seems to be the front runner for this year. She’s the American Idol darling who has stolen the spotlight from Beyonce (I bet’s she’s really p*ssed). I have not seen Dreamgirls and probably will not see it as musicals are not really my thing where movies are concerned. The math in this category is fairly simple:
Another difficult category to pick. This one seems to be all about Eddie Murphy channeling James Brown’s celebrity hot tub from Saturday Night Live into a movie. I’m not buying it though I do hear and read that he did a great job. Mark Wahlberg received the only acting nomination from The Departed. I am not sure what this is supposed to tell me though I think Wahlberg has turned out to be a fine actor after paying some serious dues (good lord, he was the head of the Funky Bunch at one time!). Djimon Hounsou was very good in Blood Diamond, but he was even better in Amistad or In America. That leaves the front runners: Alan Arkin and Jackie Earle Haley. Arkin will probably win and he’ll deserve it for the quality and quantity of work he has brought to the screen. Haley should win this award outright for his difficult role in Little Children as a tortured, sick man who has… ahem, a problem being around the, uh….well you can figure it out from the title. When he has his meltdown at the end of the movie, you feel a sympathy for him that you never thought possible and that folks is acting at its finest. I'm hoping he wins because Chris Cooper played a fairly seedy, down on his luck character to Oscar gold a few years ago in Adaptation. Besides, he was Moocher in Breaking Away dammit! He should win.
My prediction was true & the score nearly spot on with the Colts winning 29-17 over the Bears (I picked 26-16 and a good buddy of mine that I have a friendly rivalry with predicted 24-14).
I do not agree with the MVP selection. Peyton had a decent game going 25-38 for 247 with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. The MVP selection should have been split between Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes.
Addai’s stats:
19 rushes for 77 yards
10 catches for 66 yards
21 rushes for 113 yards, 1 Touchdown
1 catch for 8 yards
That is a combination of 264 yards of total offense out of a total of 430 yards put up by the Colts! No way should Manning have been the MVP.
Super Bowl ad winners:
I loved the Careerbuilder.com ads. Those office workers running over the cliff like lemmings was hilarious.
Budweiser came through yet again with a serious of funny ads. The Carlos Mencia immigrant ad was the best of the bunch followed by the face-slapping ad & the rock, paper, scissor one.
Emerald nuts had I think the best one of all with Robert Goulet playing the mid-afternoon office prankster. Seeing him climbing on the ceiling was great.
Super Bowl gripe: all the god crap. Give me a break! I don’t care if you are a christian and that your opposing coach is also one. It has no bearing on the game and no place in the after game part. I guess Lovie Smith is pissed at god now because his team lost. It’s all a load of B.S. god did not cause you to win or lose a game. Boomer Esiason also needs to get a clue. It is not classy to say all that crap on television and no one cares that you are proud to know them because of it. What a kiss ___.
Good Super Bowl.
A large part of my trip was spent in and around
A few short weeks later (and a few more side trips to the Ajanta & Ellora Cave systems as well as Elephanta Island) my trip was over and I was on my way back to America. Of course I have many other stories to share, photos to show but those are for another time. I am proud to say that I came back to my home country a wiser and more humbled person. It was the trip of a lifetime and I shall never forget it.
So, I missed going 4-0 for the week by a total of 18 points. What can I do to get some wins here? Should I suit up? Oh, I should just shut up and give you my picks for the week. I can do that.
Speaking of destiny, Peyton Manning and
So, there you have it. My Title game picks and ultimately, my Super Bowl picks.
Should be one hell of a game.
Now, I am not a rocket scientist nor did I sleep at that hotel they mention on T.V. a lot, but I must say that sending more troops is something we should have done a year or two ago when things were not so out of hand. Not now when the majority of
One day after his speech of defeat there are already rumblings that Congress will not approve further spending for this war (an illegal & unjustified one in my opinion- and yes, I know Saddam was a bad guy, but he did not start this war but Georgie Boy wanted it to be that way. Maybe he played the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game)
and I am not sure they are incorrect in the attempt, but I know that the Republican Right Wingers from Hell will come out of the woodwork in force to say that Democrats are against our troops-- a lot of B.S.
On this matter, there is only one clear answer:
Get out! Soon!
Pulling out of
We don’t need more troops in
