Good work

On the front page of MSNBC's website, they provide a link to this story:

http://www.thegrio.com/2009/11/when-given-a-choice-of.php

I guess I did too, but in an effort to try to understand what is wrong with our media. Msnbc seriously thinks this is news, it was included as an equivalent to any other link on their page. Besides the fact that it sure is awesome one of the biggest media companies in our country is now outsourcing its work, what the hell are they doing? This is the liberal agenda? Trying to make liberals look like scumbags? I can do that on my own, thank you.

"If you think the math isn't important, you don't know the right math"

Picks for Sunday, November 22nd

(Home team in caps)

DETROIT -3.5 vs Cleveland

Buffalo +9 vs JACKSONVILLE

Pittsburgh -10 vs KANSAS CITY

Indianapolis -2 vs BALTIMORE

NEW YORK -7 vs Atlanta

San Francisco +7 vs GREEN BAY

Seattle +11 vs MINNESOTA

Washington +11 vs DALLAS

TAMPA BAY +11 vs New Orleans

Arizona -9 vs ST LOUIS

NEW ENGLAND -10.5 vs New York

OAKLAND +10 vs Cincinnati

Philadelphia -3 vs CHICAGO

HOUSTON -4.5 vs Tennessee

You might think I took it too far

I cooked some black beans and chick peas. Clearly it is nothing out of the ordinary to add the requisite onions and garlic. Two kinda of hot peppers on top of that? Sure. Some cajun powder? Why not? Hot chili powder too? Of course.

At this point I realized I would be foresaking one of my deepest values if I didn't include crushed red pepper as well. It's when I went for the second serving of wasabi ginger sauce that I began to consider that I may be insane. Truth be told I still wanted to add hot sauce, and really, I don't know what stopped me.

I give this dish a 6 on the spice-o-meter. I'll see if i can top myself tomorrow.

Miss the obvious

Meaning that ESPN is based in Connecticut and so clearly the insidiousness prevalent in that state has managed to warp even the most objective sports analysts' mental acuity. Thus, just because Peyton Manning threw a whopping two interceptions during the football game does not mean the New England Patriot's defense contained him.

Let's think about 4 things and then stop being dumb, for Capt. Evil made the right choice:

1. When Stephen Gostkowski made his last field goal I thought, "13 points is fewer than 14".

2. The Patriots were up by 17 points in the 4th quarter. How is a 6-3 team that blows this lead with no turnovers in the last 15 minutes better than a 9-0 team? Thanks anyway Trent Dilfer, and to a lesser extent, that kinda fat annoying guy with slick brown hair who gets a tiny bit of SportsCenter air time.

3. Bill Belichick was completely wrong to think his defense couldn't stop a Colts team that had dropped 4 touchdowns all game, their last 3 td drives averaging far less than 3 minutes, from scoring one more with (gasp!) two minutes to play! Sike.

4. The Patriots are 63+% on 4th down and 2 or fewer yards to go with Tom Brady as quarterback. Just make sure not to run it with 2 chances to get 2 yards, and ignore the fact that you have some guy named Randy Moss on your team.

The most important theme from tonight's game is not which quarterback chokes in the clutch, and which has superior talent and mental/emotional durability, as that has clearly been answered. It is simply that both of the following two teams-the New England Patriots or the Indianapolis Colts-might care about the rest of the regular season, but for far different reasons.

Enjoy playing in southern Ohio come January narfburglars.

I like this guy

We Can Do This

Bill Maher on the republican party, yesterday:

"They looked to the future, and they saw the radio."

Great

The outcome of sports' seasons are getting quite lame. The last titles in the 4 major sports? New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh. Swell. It's kind of like Walmart, Nike, Proctor &

Gamble, and Comcast winning consumer choice awards.

Well fuck you too

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_el_st_lo/us_gay_marriage_maine

Americans seem to get so much more riled up for situations where they can be against something rather than in support of an ideal. To put it another way, we are drinking the haterade. It's time to realize that a lack of effort equals inaction, and an inability to counter this "anti" fervor is tantamount to failure.

The number of individuals who actually support gay marriage, and how said people fit along the bandwidth of bigotry are factors decreasing in importance in the modern struggle to implement common sense and gay rights in our society. It has become an issue of who can yell the loudest, and it's plain foolish for progressives to think that leading up to one of these stupid ballot measures there won't be some town crier and his band of hooligans trailing closely behind.

I don't have enough information to criticize the effort of the pro-gay marriage supporters in Maine, or their execution and impact. It's fine if they thought it was only about Maine, but 2 seconds of thought would clearly reveal that's not how our contemporary media works. Possibly, they thought completely the opposite, and were unable to acutely focus on appealing to local voters. Either way, the right wing always seems to feel they are fighting a nationwide battle with widespread implications-even on the local level-and whether valid or not, it appears to be a consistently motivating factor for voters on cultural issues.

Perhaps the rest of us have an inability to think so grandiosely, a quality which is often unattractive and damaging. Yet with an utter refusal to frame the gay marriage debate in even somewhat truthful or logical terms, we will continue being at the mercy of the right wing. We may laugh when they say they're doing something bigger than themselves, but perhaps some focus beyond only self-serving issues might someday be useful to the rest of us. Zealots come in many shape and forms, and seem to be of increasing value come election day.

It's not about other countries laughing at us, it's not about the prejudices you hate or the ones you hang on to, it's not about it being cool to take a stance, or hating conservatives, supporting or opposing gay marriage for no particular reason, it's not about trying to be trendy, and it's not about your own marriage or concept thereof. It is a simple matter of human and civil rights.

I'd like to believe at some point in my lifetime this nation can move on to arguing about issues which actually have more than one valid side to them, issues with some texture and grey area which are more convoluted than the black and white topics shoved down our face every day.

Then I think, and I realize maybe that's not what it's about either. I'm an effort to dodge the conflict and difficulty associated with the gay marriage debate, and truly, the issue of homosexuality in America as a whole, I am losing any vision of a solution. Perhaps because I'm not on the fence about this, I just feel like it should end a certain way so we can move on. That's not only short-sighted, but ignorant as well. It isn't for the reason that my belief necessarily devalues the effort put forth by gay rights supporters, but rather because it overvalues the level of communication and understanding within our culture.

Myself, along with many other Americans, have to realize that these goals haven't been reached, and that expectation alone accomplishes very little, especially as long as there is at least one person on the other side of the aisle, screaming as loudly as they possibly can.

In the 1950's

There was network television. For some of us, that's still the case. Clearly the cablephiles reading are already lost, therefore I will present information relevant to your brain.

Best Comedies:

NBC

ABC

FOX

CBS

This really is the ugliest television category possible. People are so used to there being "comedy" on tv that they don't realize there isn't any. I don't mean isn't as in 'there aren't 3 funny shows in television', but otherwise take that statement as literally as possible. There may not be 4 funny shows on TV, let alone network tv, but this list merely reflects an understanding of the following:

NBC has the funniest show, and is probably the only network channel with more than one funny show. CBS is actually so blatantly horrific that I would be fine with putting the CW and whatever UPN has turned into in your area well ahead of CBS in this category. I don't even know of any comedies on the CW, but when the guy from Two and a Half Men (who's not Charlie Sheen!) is winning an emmy, Ray Romano is bigger than the CEO, and we're dealing with the channel that is bringing a Jenna Elfman project to the small screen while still maintaining the best ratings, I simply have no sympathy for CBS.

Sports Coverage:

ABC

CBS

FOX

NBC

FOX is so cheesy and will never get any better. You know how they have those super awkward shots of football players faces as they introduce themselves, then have nothing to say for like 7 seconds? Now they have that for robots! FOX has an animated robot acting awkward and blocking a quarter of the screen during a sporting event. It makes no sense to me. NBC is terrible and ruins everything they touch sports wise. Al Michaels, Marv Albert, Bob Costas, it just gets worse and worse. Even the Olympics make my veins dry up and turn to chili peppers.

Best Dramas:

ABC

NBC

FOX

CBS

I'm putting ABC first because of Lost and Life on Mars, but really because they and FOX are the only ones that take chances with their dramas, and FOX's "chances" are usually the same thing. True-Flash Forward, an ABC show I have no plans of ever watching-looks a lot like Lost, but ABC has had tons of semi-risky almost decent shows, easily placing itself ahead of:

NBC (Law & Order, Law & Order: Cum Police, Law & Order: The Donofrio Hovercraft, Nerds, This is Arquette), CBS (CSI: MXDL, Num 3 Ers, and a multitude of shows where fancy, and it has to be fancy groups of law-enforcement types successfully solve murders while trying to remain sexy), and FOX (24).

News Coverage:

NBC

CBS

ABC

FOX

Truly, there are three 3rd place finishers, and one 4th. NBC is owned by GE, which has its hands in so many things I doubt I'd even be informed about it. ABC is owned by Disney, and CBS by Viacom. Brian Williams is superior to Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, and while I used to give FOX a glimmer of credit for airing The Simpsons and Seinfeld while other networks aired local and national news, the beast now shows it's own combo of local news+TMZ. Murdoch.

Reality Shows:

ABC

NBC

CBS

FOX

I don't like reality shows. I do however like Jeopardy, which airs on ABC and certainly fits in this category, since most network reality shows are game shows revolving around a prize anyway. NBC gets second place simply because I don't know of any reality shows on this channel. CBS gets third because it's not FOX, and 4th goes to the makers of Temptation Island, Nanny 911, American Idol (I consider this one bad, have your own opinions), and trying to air Celebrity Mole after the original broadcasted on ABC.