Bill Richardson on Meet the Press

I thought this exchange was pretty funny on Meet the Press last weekend.
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MR. RUSSERT: You spent a lot of time in, in Massachusetts. Are you a Red Sox fan?

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan, but I got into trouble in New Hampshire. You know why? Because I said...

MR. RUSSERT: Luis Tiant, the fund-raiser. But, now, governor, this is very serious. In your book on page 18 it says...

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, about Mickey Mantle?

MR. RUSSERT: You said you’re a Yankee fan!

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no. I said—no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: I mean, you can, you can...

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: ...you can have different views on immigration, assault weapons...

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, no no no no. No, what I said...

MR. RUSSERT: But when it comes to Red Sox, Yankees.

GOV. RICHARDSON: What I said, the Associated Press asked me, “If you weren’t running for president, if you weren’t running for president, what would you rather be?” I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, but I said if I weren’t running for president I would like to be number seven, Mickey Mantle, playing center field for the New York Yankees.

MR. RUSSERT: “Because of Mickey Mantle, I became a Yankee fan.”

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, my favorite team has always been the Red Sox.

MR. RUSSERT: You’re a Red Sox fan.

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan.

MR. RUSSERT: End of subject.

GOV. RICHARDSON: End of subject.

MR. RUSSERT: You better get rid of this book.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Oh, no! I’m also a Yankee fan. I also like...

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, now, wait a minute!

GOV. RICHARDSON: You can—Tim...

MR. RUSSERT: I guarantee...

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, I know, I got in trouble...

MR. RUSSERT: ...if you go—if you go to Yankee Stadium or Fenway, you cannot be both.

GOV. RICHARDSON: But I like—Mickey Mantle was my hero. If I weren’t running for president, and the Associated Press asked me, I’d play center field for the New York—I wanted to be number seven. And—but I still love the Red Sox as a team. I mean, this is the thing about me, Tim. I can bring people together. I can unify people.

MR. RUSSERT: Yankee fans and Red Sox fans?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Not a chance.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I bet you I can.

Politicians on MySpace

I was never interested in the social networking websites, and I find it even funnier when major celebrities or corporations even have pages on websites like Myspace.com. Yesterday I saw something even more ridiculous - each candidate for President has a MySpace page. Even more absurd is that when I clicked on the profile for Rudy Giuliani, I was told that "This profile is private. This user must add you as a friend to see his/her profile." Rudy Giuliani's profile is private? Really? Isn't this going against using the MySpace page as a political ad / fund raising tool?

The humor of each of these candidates having a MySpace page is also pretty good, I suspect none of them have ever used MySpace before or even have direct participation in maintaining the pages. I'm surprised they don't link to each other in the "friends" section.

MLB Draft

Hey! The MLB Draft is going to be televised on ESPN2!

Isn't that... the most boring thing you could ever think of?

Let's see -- nobody follows amateur baseball the way they follow amateur football or basketball. The teams are not able to trade draft picks. The draft order is set randomly. Players who are drafted get to report to the A ball affiliates.

Who will be the MLB version of Mel Kiper, Jr?

While this is a good idea to bring attention to the MLB draft, I have the feeling that this will be very very boring. The NFL draft has so much chatter and balderdash to begin with, can you imagine what the 50 round, 30 team MLB draft will be like?

5/6/07 - Seattle Mariners vs New York Yankees

I forgot to bring my camera to the game today, but it was quite a game!

First off, the fielding of the Mariners was horrible. LF Raul Ibanez lost at least two fly balls in the sun, with them dropping in for hits / scoring plays. They had at least one or two additional fielding muffs such as the catcher dropping a foul pop up and the third baseman throwing away a ground ball.

SP Darrell Rasner was pretty good today, much better than when I saw him last month. I was a little bummed out when I realized Phillip Hughes would have pitched today were it not for the pulled hamstring. It was also too bad I missed Chien-Ming Wang's near perfect game yesterday.

Josh Phelps ran into the catcher unnecessarily at one point in the game and got hit by a pitch his next time up. Both teams were warned. Later in the game, reliever Scott Proctor threw an inside pitch to a Seattle player who went crazy, pointing and yelling. There was some back and forth but no fight. It was pretty ridiculous, the pitch didn't even hit the Seattle player! Even more ridiculous was the sight of both bullpens emptying. The players came out and there was nothing going on. It was kind of funny I suppose, but the last thing the Yankees need is another pulled hamstring because of jogging out from the bullpen.

Finally in the seventh inning stretch, the biggest news of the day. After they played "God Bless America," they began to play "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as usual. Suddenly after the first line of the song, public address announcer Bob Sheppard says, "Please direct your attention to the owner's box and the jumbotron screen for an important announcement." At this point, I thought something awful had happened outside. Instead, it's Roger Clemens from the owners box, and he said something like, "...got me out of Texas" and "see you guys real soon." It doesn't really matter, we all knew it meant he was coming back. Totally ridiculous, theatrical and awesome! I have tickets to a game in June and am secretly hoping he will be back that day.

Extended Edition DVD's

I've been noticing that a number of the comic book movies that have come out lately have had "new" releases on DVD that act as "extended" versions. I think the trend started with "X-Men 1.5" which incorporated deleted scenes into the original cut. Most recently there was also a "Spider-Man 2.1" cut released as well. I can understand that these films are popular and that the movie studios are trying to maximize their money from the DVD's, but films like Daredevil, Ghost Rider and even Fantastic Four are also having extended cuts produced. This is pretty frustrating, as these movies were not even that good, and it seems like the movie studios are specifically targeting the comic fans for "double dipping" with DVD's. I wish that the movie studios could just produce a high quality, DVD that contained a ton of features definitively, but I think considering how many times the Star Wars saga has been re-released, I will just have to dream.

Spider-Man 3 Premiere - Spoiler Free Review

I was lucky enough to get the chance to see Spider-Man 3 tonight as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Here is a spoiler free review.

First off, the setting: The film debuted at the UA Kaufman Theater in Astoria Queens. It was closer to get to from Manhattan than I had expected (just off the R train). They had 14 screens with each showing Spider-Man. It was a mob scene around the theater. We entered through a back entrance, so we didn't get to see the red carpet entrances of the stars. I was in theater 1, but did not see any stars or celebrities in the theater.

On to the movie: To start, I thought this movie was a pretty good film. Anyone who goes to see it should have fun for the most part. If you were a fan of either of the first two films, you should enjoy this one. The performances by all the leads were very good, including Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Topher Grace and Thomas Hayden Church. At times the story suffers from "too-many-characters-itis" that makes the storytelling choppy, but as in the first two movies, they use Peter's personal dilemmas to be the outline for the rest of the Spider-Man action sequences. There are some funny lines, and I think some of the humor is a little more over the top than in the first two movies. The story has heart, however, and the action, while too heavy in computer graphics at times, is pretty good for the most part.

For a third outing in a franchise, Spider-Man 3 is a strong movie. It's certainly better than X-Men 3 was, and will probably be well received at the box office and by critics. There is no doubt that a Spider-Man 4 will follow, the only question will be who will be behind them.

Moss to Patriots

What????

A fourth-round pick to the Raiders gives the New England Patriots WR Randy Moss. Sure, Moss has had all sorts of problems in the past, but I can't imagine there will be any trouble integrating him into the New England system. Now the Pats have an amazing receiver, huge deep threat, and it cost them hardly anything. This just seems unfair. With Indianapolis dismantled after the Super Bowl, it seems to me that the Pats are the team to beat once again by a long shot.

Meanwhile, the Jets have been rumored to be shopping WR Justin McCairens for a fourth round pick. I wonder if the Moss trade will have any impact on this. I think McCairens was a solid player, but for whatever reason has not done well under coach Eric Mangini. Will other teams demand less from the Jets for McCairens seeing that Moss went for a fourth rounder?

Aquapod

I recently saw these Aquapod containers of Poland Spring at CVS and couldn't help but laugh. Especially at the balloon that says, "Orbtastic shape!"

Orbtastic, huh? What does that even mean?

Why is water bottle shaped this way? Was there something wrong with the shape of normal water bottles? This orb shape doesn't seem to be any more useful, convenient or fun than the usual shape.

Is This Related?

4/24 - Hunter's champagne gift violated baseball rule
Twins OF Torii Hunter gave the KC Royals four bottles of champagne after they swept the Detroit Tigers last year, helping the Twins pass the Tigers in the standings and win the AL Central. According to MLB rules, personnel cannot give gifts to other teams for beating another team. The champagne was returned.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2847416


4/26 - Hunter taken to hospital after being hit in mouth
Twins OF Torii Hunter was hit in the mouth by KC Royals pitcher Zack Greinke.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2850281

Probably not related, but funnier if they were related.

Fashion Police (or Red is the New Black)

I noticed that the Diamondbacks changed their uniforms this season from purple and green to this red and black scheme. It's no surprise that they wanted to change their uniforms from the purple and green, but why choose red and black as the new colors? Their new uniforms are nearly indistinguishable from the Reds, Angels, Nationals and Phillies. In addition the Braves and Red Sox also feature red alternate jerseys from time to time. Is red that fashionable these days? There must have been another color scheme they could have chosen.

4/8/07 - Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees

The last few years I have tried to make it out for an early weekend game at Yankee Stadium. Typically for these games tickets are a little easier to come by and the weather isn't terribly hot.

When I bought the tickets for the Easter Sunday game at the Stadium, I had hoped Andy Pettitte would be starting. A rainout changed these plans until Darrell Rasner had a bad outing, and Andy Pettitte came in for a relief inning. It snowed during the gmae. Also of note, it was calendar day. Enjoy the photos from Tier 15.

For a loss, the game was pretty entertaining, as the Yankees had a few chances late to win the game or tie, but they didn't win in the end.



A-Rod, who one week later, is still on fire.
Meeting at the mound.
Andy Pettitte in a surprise relief appearance.
Yes. It snowed on April 8 at the ballgame.


I think this was the first game I've seen with Bobby Abreu.
Darrell Rasner
Jason Giambi
Derek Jeter
Johnny Damon didn't start but made a pinch hit appearance when it got closer.


Same for Jorge Posada.

Manny Being Manny?

There's a recent article in the New Yorker by Ben McGrath with some funny notes on Red Sox LF Manny Ramirez. Here are some of the highlights. This stuff is good.

1) He has five driver's licenses and two social security numbers
2) He has two sons named "Manny, Jr."
3) He once requested a trade to Pawtucket, the Red Sox AAA affiliate

A-Rod Walk-off Grand Slam

Alex Rodriguez hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning today with two outs, winning the game for the New York Yankees against the Baltimore Orioles. So will it be minutes, hours or days before his critics decide that this home run "wasn't clutch enough" or that since he did it in the regular season against Baltimore "it still didn't happen when it matters."

I'm guessing minutes to hours.

President Clinton

I saw President Clinton by the Time Warner Center one week ago. He was shaking people's hands, but I was trying to "play it cool" and not go up to him. Instead, I tried to quickly snap some photos. I should have just gawked because these photos are crappy. In case you couldn't tell, he's the gray haired blur.

Tempted

I was in the store the other day and saw a big tub of cheese balls. It took all my willpower not to buy it. I can't resist their bright orange glow!

More Knicks

The Knicks are on the verge of making it into the NBA playoffs, with a 30-36 record. Their "improvement" this year has already gotten Isiah Thomas a contract extension. I have to wonder, however, can a fan be excited for the team making the playoffs if their record isn't so hot? They're not exactly a great team. They are incredibly inconsistent, thus their under .500 record. I am impressed by the fact that they lost Jamal Crawford and David Lee and continue to play well, but I can't help but think the only reason they're even thinking about playoffs is that their division and the conference are just not very good this year.

Questions... Part 2

Why is the GI Joe theme song in my head?

He'll fight for freedom, wherever there's trouble
GI Joe is there

It's GI Joe against Cobra the enemy, fighting to save the day
He never gives up he's always there
Fighting for freedom over land and air!

GI Joe (A real American hero)
Fighting to save the day
GI Joe (A real American hero)
GI Joe is there

Questions...

Feeling philosophical today.

1) If you put a brain into a new body, would that be a brain transplant or a body transplant?

2) When Ben Franklin helped organize the United States Postal Service, do you think he knew he was creating a place that would be the source of untold misery? Have you ever been to a post office? There is no other place where 100% of the people are angry and miserable. From the customers to the people working, the whole joint is full of negative energy. It isn't specific to any one post office either. What is it about that place?

Comics Wrap-up

Lately there have been a few big comic book conventions, and a bunch of comic book related news. There's a few things that have been bugging me and I figured this was as good a time as any to talk about them.

First, we'll start with Marvel Comics, who just wrapped up their huge Civil War event. I've grown up following Marvel, and for the most part have been very happy with things. But lately I've been falling off the Marvel bandwagon, and I don't know exactly why. The first signs were when J. Michael Straczynski did a story in Amazing Spider-Man where it turned out that Peter Parker's late girlfriend Gwen Stacy had sex with Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin, because of a moment of weakness. Around that time I had also started to become disillusioned with Brian Michael Bendis's writing as well, and stopped reading titles Ultimate Spider-Man. I found Avengers Disassembled somewhat ridiculous and never got interested in New Avengers, the best selling Marvel comic. That should have been another sign that my relationship with Marvel was going downhill.

I still continued on with the books that got me into comics in the first place, the X-Men family and Wolverine, followed a few other heroes such as Daredevil and Captain America, and kept with most of the Ultimate line (Ultimates, Ultimate FF and Ultimate X-Men).

The next phase of disappointment came with the House of M and Decimation events that followed. These events were supposed to have all sorts of lasting effects and implications but I haven't really noticed it in the storytelling. The only difference seems to be that the X-Men are under "house arrest" by Sentinels, yet still manage to find their ways out of the mansion to do things.

Now there's this Civil War business. The art was great. I've always liked Mark Millar's writing, but there's just not much of a story to the main Civil War book. I didn't read the associated books such as Frontline or any additional crossover titles. There were too many gaps in the story that just didn't make sense. From reading the main title alone, nobody would know that Captain Marvel had come back to life, or why Spider-Man wears his black costume during the epilogue or why Johnny and Susan Storm needed to be arrested once they left Tony Stark's group (after all, they were registered!). I appreciate that the book has changed the way the Marvel U will operate - there will be 50 super teams, one for each state, and every super hero will need to be trained and monitored by the US Government. Fine. But I'm not interested. One reason is that I've realized I don't care about the non X-Men heroes in the Marvel Universe. I couldn't even recognize half the people involved in the fighting in Civil War. When I see the Marvel solicitations for future books, I just don't care about most of the books. I don't know why that is.

The Ultimate universe has also gone south for me. Ultimate X-Men has floundered under Robert Kirkman, with stories that I just haven't enjoyed and seem inconsequential. So I've stopped getting that book. I stopped reading Ultimate FF once Mark Millar left. The Ultimates will conclude later this year, but I don't expect to be on board for volumes 3 or 4. The Ultimate universe has lost its simplicity and excitement and become as convoluted as the Marvel U.

Meanwhile in the land of X, the X-Men title with the "best" X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, comes out on the least regular basis. The other two X-titles are pretty good, but not amazing. Wolverine has two titles, and in one he's fighting Sabretooth for about 5 issues, and in the other it turns out he has a son with claws. Doesn't he already have offspring with claws named X-23? I'm not interested.

By the way, all the mutants except for 198 of them got de-powered. Not a single of member of the X-Men lost his or her powers in that event. How can an event be significant and not have any of the X-Men lose their powers? Also, I understand the need to decrease the number of mutants, but turning them into just 198 makes them totally irrelevant. Who cares now? It does make sense that the Marvel U would then focus on general super-powered beings since they now outnumber mutants.

Coming soon, more crossovers, with "World War Hulk" and a "huge X-Men event." The X-Men event might be good, but I'll be steering clear of the Hulk stuff.

So the bottom line with Marvel Comics, here's what I'm reading and here's what I've dropped in the last year.

Still Reading:
Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins, Runaways, Ultimates vol 2, Captain America

Dropped:
Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate FF, Daredevil

On the other side of the fence, I've been really enjoying DC Comics, at least, when they come out. Infinite Crisis was a good series, although the ending seemed a bit rushed with some sloppy art. They have been moving from event to event to event, which is a bit daunting. The biggest disappointment at DC has been their horrible shipping schedule. I picked up a bunch of DC titles over the past year, but some of them hardly come out.

The Superman family, Action Comics and Superman have both been plagued by delays. Superman had some nice art by Carlos Pacheco, but I just haven't gotten into the "alternate future" storyline that they started, and now that the book has been delayed, I've decided to stop getting it. Meanwhile, I've really enjoyed Action Comics by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner, but they've only produced three issues in the last year. With both series there are fill-in stories coming out but I'm just not interested in them as they seem irrelevant to the main stories.

The Batman books have also been delayed, with Grant Morrison taking a few months off, and Paul Dini also getting a breather. Again, I'm not interested in the fill-ins. Paul Dini is taking up the next big DC event as well, so I'd imagine there will be more delays.

Wonder Woman was the worst case of delays. Writer Allan Heinberg fell behind with his schedule and this monthly title has been completely off track, with 4 issues in the last 9-10 months.

Then there's any book that Jim Lee touches. This includes Wildcats and All-Star Batman and Robin. All-Star Batman and Robin #1 came out in July 2005. The last issue was issue 4! This was supposed to be a sort of answer to Ultimate Spider-Man, and it's been a total failure. That's before even discussing the strange story within. Meanwhile, Wildcats, which was supposed to be the re-launch of the Wildstorm line has had 6 months off between issues.

There are some good things being done at DC. 52 has been pretty good for more weeks than not, and Justice Society might be the best book available at all. Their next weekly book, Countdown, sounds pretty promising, although I'm a bit intimidated price wise by picking up another weekly. Justice League with Brad Meltzer has been pretty good, although it took 3 months for Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman to get up from a table. I'm a bit ticked off that there's another mini-event, "World War III" but if the story's good then it will bother me less.

So the state of DC is pretty good, but with way too many delays, and I'd prefer fewer crossovers. But the universe is more cohesive and I'm enjoying the characters a bit more.

Reading:
52, Detective Comics, Batman, Action Comics (w/Johns/Donner), Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Ex-Machina

When it comes out:
Planetary, Wildcats, All-Star Batman and Robin, Authority v4, Heinberg's Wonder Woman

Dropped:
Superman/Batman

Started then dropped:
Superman

Dollar Coins

As if the US wasn't trying to confuse foreign tourists enough with the 50 state quarters, now we get to add another variation on the dollar coin to our currency mix. Instead of Sacagawea, now 4 dollar coins per year will feature Presidents of the United States on the back. Sounds great, right? Makes you want to start using dollar coins, doesn't it? Interestingly the last President planned for this program is Richard Nixon. Why stop at Nixon? Aren't Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton worthy of this program as well? If Watergate isn't enough to prevent you from having a dollar coin, what is? Also, by the time their quarters would be available it will be 2016, 30 years since Reagan was in office. That should be enough time, right? Another fun fact, Grover Cleveland will get 2 coins for his 2 nonconsecutive terms. I don't know if I can wait until 2014 to get my Warren Harding coins!

Taxi Fare Estimator

To someone who has the time:

I think it would be very useful to develop a taxi cab fare estimator for NYC where you could plug in an origin and destination and a rough estimate of the taxi fare would be spit out. The taxi fare is formulaic anyways (flat rate + distance), with the biggest wildcard being traffic. If you could sync the estimator with traffic reports, then it would be even better. This would also help with making offers to non-yellow cabs (the so-called gypsy cabs). It could be in the same vein as hopstop.com, the great subway route resource.

If someone has already come up with this, then I apologize but I wasn't able to find anything on my google searches.

Heroes - Primatech Paper

I was watching this past week's episode of Heroes and thought I was really clever when I looked up a website that the episode referenced - www.primatechpaper.com. Of course, the website led to a fake site that was set up by people on the show. But it turns out I'm not as clever as I had thought. I went to the official Heroes website and there's this huge banner ad for their fictitious site there. The first time I had heard of something like this was a few years ago on 24, when someone got a cell phone number, and if you called it, the phone answered and said something like, "You have reached Jack Bauer's cell phone." As it turns out you can call the Primatech Paper company as well. There are some "secret codes" you need to enter, and no doubt that future episodes will have those secret codes for people to try out.

Wacky Blog

Check out http://wackychinaman.blogspot.com

Apparently the Wacky Chinaman was not content posting to other people's blogs and he started his own. It's very nice. I should have mentioned this months ago, but I guess better late than never.

Quiz

Try these two quizzes:

http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/

http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/villain/

I was 70% Superman and 55% Dr. Doom. I was really hoping for Batman but apparently I'm not dark and brooding enough.

Dining in the City - Two Weekends

The last two weekends have been a flurry of new dining experiences for me in NYC. Here is a quick recap:

Friday 1/12
Le Miu - 107 Ave A, near 7th St
Friday night's dinner was a selection we had been meaning to try for quite some time. This modern Japanese restaurant seemed a little too trendy for alphabet city the first few times we've passed it by, but the dishes sounded interesting, and later, we found out that the chefs had previously worked at places such as Nobu and Megu. The setting was nice and the service was pretty good. We got seated immediately (around 9-10pm). We ordered as appetizers the soft shell crab, and rock shrimp, and for entrees miso cod and king crab fried rice. The two fried appetizers were pretty good, and the miso cod was also delicious (although it's been a while since I've had that dish at pricier places). The king crab fried rice was not what I expected -- it came in a sort of a casserole dish and was a little bit more like a soup. But still very good. It's a nice little find in alphabet city.

Saturday 1/13
Katz's Delicatessen - 205 E Houston St and Ludlow St
I've been craving potato pancakes and corned beef for quite some time. So when it was my turn to pick a dinner location on Saturday night in the Lower East Side, I decided to go with Katz's Delicatessen. We ended up ordering a corned beef / pastrami combination sandwich, and a plate of potato pancakes. The sandwich was great but it wasn't as huge as I had expected. I can remember times I've been to Stage Deli or Carnegie Deli near Times Square where I couldn't even fit my mouth around the sandwich. Despite the warning that "it would be hard to finish," my Katz's Deli sandwich was not as big. It was still very very tasty. The potato pancakes were also good - much better than the last potato pancakes I had at the Ukranian joint, Veselka. I still can't figure out why they have this silly ticket system at Katz's that involves getting a ticket when you come in and then showing it when you leave, or else you have to pay $50. Of course, they only take cash. There was a cool letter on the back wall from a soldier during the Vietnam War requesting a salami be mailed to him. The signs say the hot dogs are great but at $2.75 a pop I'm hesitant to try. Anyway for hot dogs I want to check out Crif Dogs in the East Village.

Sunday 1/14
Cafe Gitane - 242 Mott St, between Prince and Houston
Brunch on Sunday at Cafe Gitane. I had never been here before but my lady friend said it was a great place for brunch. She was right. Sometimes I get intimidated by French places because I'm afraid of mispronouncing the names of the dishes since I don't speak French. We ordered the Tuna spread, toasted baguette with cherry tomato and endive salad, along with the roasted chicken sandwich (with chipotle mayo, parmesan and roasted tomato on a baguette). Both dishes were delicious. I was very impressed with the sandwich, although I wish it was a little bigger. They only took cash also. We had to wait about 10 minutes for a table for 5.

Friday 1/19
I Coppi - 432 E 9th St, between 1st and A
The next weekend took us to I Coppi, an East Village Italian joint that again, my lady friend had been eyeing. The front has a nice, cute look to it, but the back was even nicer with an indoor garden. It reminded us of another restaurant, August, that had a smaller but similar back room. Our meal started with the Carpaccio con Rucola e Grana, which I really liked. Rare meat plus hard shaved cheese equals tasty in my book. For entrees we shared Tagliatelle alla Boscaiola - a great al dente ribbon shaped pasta with a "spicy meat sauce" and Gallello al Mattone, a grilled, brick oven roasted chicken. The pasta was great, and probably homemade. The chicken was not as good in my opinion, as it could have used a little more meat and was a little dry from the brick oven. Everything was good here, and the slow service I had heard about was nowhere to be seen. To get nitpicky, the bread they brought didn't taste that good. I easily made a reservation for a Friday night about one week in advance.

Room 4 Dessert - 17 Cleveland Pl, between Spring and Kenmare
After eating dinner at I Coppi, we went across town to Room 4 Dessert, which is an all-dessert bar. I had heard about it the day before in New York Magazine as a "must eat" for 2007. They compared it to the East Village joint, Chikalicious, also a dessert bar. Chikalicious serves a prix fixe, three course dessert in a small, bright bar setting. We got to Room 4 Dessert at 11pm, and while I had made a reservation, we didn't seem to need it. There were enough seats at the bar. It was nice they took reservations (Chikalicious does not). The setting was dark and the bar is configured as a long bar. The menu is a little different. We had a "Dessert glass" to start, which is a small glass with a bunch of dessert elements mixed together. Ours had a cola ice cream, cracker jacks and some other sweets. I forgot its name but it was very good. Then we shared two Dessert "Tastings" which are long plates with four dessert elements. The first was called Apple in Various States, which featured four different apple-ish variations (and all were quite good), and the name of the second escapes me but it included a great brioche and a rich chocolate setting. We didn't get drinks but they have a nice menu system that pairs the drinks with each dish.

Saturday 1/20
Krunch Pizza Bar - 980 2nd Ave at 52nd St
In a quest for something new, my brother suggested Krunch Pizza Bar. It's sort of a trendy pizza place, and slices were close to $3 a pop for a square piece of pizza, but they had some nice variations. We tried the BBQ Pollo, Pizza agli Spinaci (mozzarella and spinach), Krunch Zucca (zucchini, onion, garlic and parmesan - no tomato) Chorizo and Cheeseburger pizza. All of them were good. The pizzas had a very crispy crust and fresh toppings. I would eat here a lot, except that the price per slice is pretty high. Two slices and a drink = 8.75!

New Green Bo - 66 Bayard St between Mott and Elizabeth
For dinner, I had been craving some Shanghai delicacies. Unfortunately, we heard that a friend had been to our favorite, Yeah Shanghai Deluxe and saw roaches crawling on the tables!! So we decided to try somewhere new. There was another Shanghai restaurant on Bayard near Elizabeth but we nixed it for having too many white people in it. Instead we headed to New Green Bo, which we had heard was good but had never been. We ordered soup dumplings (xiao luom bao), pork shoulder (ti pang), a casserole and some shanghai noodles with mixed meat/seafood. The meal overall was a bit greasy, the pork shoulder was drier than it should have been, but the sauce was good. We didn't wait long and we didn't have to share a table (around 7:30pm). The dumplings were great. A little disappointing but the dishes still cured my craving.

Sunday 1/21
Bondi Road - 153 Rivington between Suffolk and Clinton
We walked by this place one night and it looked cool. Then we saw that they had a brunch special that included all-you-can-drink and we were sold. It's sort of a barebones place but the waitress is Australian and according to my brother, who studied in Australia, they tried to keep the menu pretty authentic. It was pretty empty at about 1pm on Sunday -- I think the crowd here tends to come later in the afternoon and for dinner. Unfortunately a lot of the dinner menu items weren't available, but what we had was still very good. We got fish and chips, and a variation of eggs benedict that was on two crabcakes. I absolutely loved the french fries; they were some of the best fries I've had in a while. The eggs were good too, and the crabcakes weren't bad but now I compare every crabcake to G and M in Maryland, which just isn't fair. But I'm curious about the chicken schnitzel and burger with the lot on the dinner menu. We'll have to come back to this place, which sounds like a lot of fun at night.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine - 126 Rivington between Essex and Norfolk
After brunch, we had to make a quick stop at Sugar Sweet Sunshine, a place my lady friend likes to call "Magnolia of the LES." She's right, too. They have an eclectic set of furniture for seating, sort of out of a hipster's room. But the desserts are delicious, and we had a yellow cake with yellow frosting that was so buttery and sweet, and oh so good. Not a bad way to cap off a fatty lunch of aussie fish and chips, and just down the street.

Brief Notes on the Yankees

The Yankees are trading Randy Johnson back to Arizona. I think we can say that Johnson's time in NY was unsuccessful - he was expected to be an ace and win a World Series. He did neither. I don't really hold it against him, however, as he was so old. It's too bad it has to end like this. The Yankees gave up a lot to get him and aren't getting nearly the same value in return. I wonder if they should have ever made the trade in the first place.

They also signed Doug Mientkiewicz, and I think it's a big mistake. I know that Mientkiewicz's defense is supposed to be superb, but I don't think it outweighs his terrible bat and the fact that he's old. I get the feeling he might not make it through the season with the team. It's nice to have a 1B for defensive purposes but he's left handed, old and a poor hitter. The Yankees could use someone young and right handed.

It looks like Bernie Williams will not be back with the team, and that's also too bad. Mike Francesa of WFAN suggested that the Yankees should have tried to train Bernie last year to play 1B and then he would have had some value with the team. Sounds like a reasonable idea, but I wonder if it could have even been done.

Resolutions

Happy New Year.

I resolve to post more on this blog but like most New Year's resolutions, I won't be able to pull it off after about two days.

Name Recognition

I got this email this morning from buy.com that read: $10 Nano MP3 player. Of course, I knew there had to be a catch, like "only 70 available" or multiple rebate offers, but it never crossed my mind that the Nano MP3 player they were referring to was the Creative Zen Nano, and not Apple's iPod Nano. I don't know who stole the name from who (I suspect Creative) but it seems a little misleading that both companies can call their products "Nano." What if Dell called their new computer a Dimension G4? Or if another company came out with a video game called "Karaoke Hero"? Sure, the words Nano, G4 or Hero could be used freely, and while it might help to boost your product by using the name of a familiar (and popular) brand, wouldn't the best way to market be to have a superior product and increase your own unique name recognition?

Jets Playoff Chances

A few notes off the Jets game:

1) The NFC North stinks. While the league is full of inconsistency, the NFC North is horrid. I think the NFC North is the reason why so many teams in the AFC East have good records. The Vikings, who have a "great run defense" have no defense against the pass. Ditto for the Green Bay Packers. By the way, can you really have a "great run defense" when your pass defense is horrible? During the Jets and Vikings game, a graphic was flashed up showing how the Vikings run attack compared with Super Bowl defenses like the 85 Bears and 00 Ravens. That's all well and good, but when teams abandon the run in order to just pass against you, it seems misleading.

2) The entire NFC stinks. If the Super Bowl champion does not come from the AFC, it would be a huge surprise. How are the Giants, who have been horrible lately still in the playoff picture, while the Jets, with a better record, need to be perfect the rest of the way.

3) I don't think the Jets will make the playoffs but it's still close. They're tied right now with Denver and Jacksonville, but lose both tiebreakers to those teams. Cincinnati is 8-5, although they need to play the Colts tonight. The Jets need to win both of their games to finish 10-6, not an easy task playing at Miami on Christmas. But even that wouldn't guarantee a playoff spot. They'll need help from New England against Jacksonville next week, since the Jags own the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Bengals and Denver play each other next week, which means if the Colts beat the Bengals tonight, then one of Denver and the Bengals would be assured to go 9-7. I'm not expecting much but it could be a lot of fun going into the stretch. Maybe Miami, now with 8 losses will feel like they have nothing to play for on Christmas night and not be as good as they've been the last month or so. Here's hoping that's the case.

Yankees Offseason

Going into this offseason, it was pretty clear that the Yankees needed some pitching. At the end of the season, the only starting pitchers under contract were Wang, Johnson, Pavano and Wright. Mike Mussina also had an option that was expected to be picked up. As for position players, there wasn't much to tinker with, except the problem of too many outfielders - Matsui, Damon, Sheffield, Abreu, Williams and Cabrera were all on the squad in the postseason.

The Yankees have made some moves that made sense. They got rid of Sheffield and Wright, and signed Kei Igawa from Japan for close to the market value. Mussina was given a contract extension.

Not too bad so far. The team has re-signed Andy Pettitte, which is a popular move because of Pettitte's past, but I can't help but think it's a move made more out of nostalgia. Even so, he may have been the best person available for the money the Yankees were willing to pay.

As for the rest of the outfield, it seems unlikely they will be able to keep both Bernie Williams and Melky Cabrera, which is unfortunate. It would be difficult to see Williams in another uniform other than the pinstripes, and Cabrera is a pretty talented outfielder who can play all the positions.

I just get the feeling that the Yankees are this aging team that will make the playoffs a lot but just doesn't have the big ace pitcher that World Series teams tend to have. I see Boston going out to make improvements. With the Yankees, they just seem older. I guess we'll have to wait until late next season to find out.

New York Knicks Fight

Just when you thought it couldn't get any "better" for the Knicks, they had a huge fight on Saturday night. If you hadn't heard, while being blown out at home against the Nuggets, Knicks benchwarmer, Mardy Collins landed a hard foul on Nuggets guard J. R. Smith. Soon after, Smith got upset, and ended up in an altercation with popular Knicks player Nate Robinson. As the fight died down, Carmelo Anthony suckerpunched Collins in the face, and Jared Jeffries ran after him like a crazy man, with his jersey being tugged off as people tried to stop him. I'm so sorry I missed it live.

There's a ton of blame to go around on this one. Starting with the Nuggets: head coach George Karl is known to have made negative comments about Isiah and the Knicks regarding the Larry Brown situation. Could he have had his starters in late in the game on purpose to avenge Brown? Certainly possible.

Earlier in the game, J. R. Smith did a reverse jam while the Nuggets had a big lead. It was a show-off move. A hard foul could have been revenge for that as well.

Finally, Carmelo Anthony doesn't really have any defense for the nasty punch he threw while the fight was dying down.

What about the Knicks? They are not blameless here by any means. Again, starting with the coach. The stories published today, suggest that Isiah Thomas asked Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony at one point why the Nuggets were playing two starters, and then warned that Anthony should avoid the paint. Did he order a hard foul on a Nuggets player as retribution? Thomas also has a track record for having a bad temper - remember when he wanted to fight heckling fans? What about when he was screaming "break his feet" to his players regarding the Spurs' Bruce Bowen?

Nate Robinson also escalated this one. Nate is really popular among Knicks fans but I don't really see why. The only thing I can think of is that he's short. He plays with a lot of energy too. But he's a selfish player and not a great shooter. It'd be nice to see a point guard who can pass the ball a little. Regarding the fight, Robinson went after Smith, following the Collins foul. I wonder why he was looking for a fight there, as his teammate is the one who made the big foul.

Finally Jeffries, the big addition of the off season, looked deranged as people nearly tore off his jersey as they tried to hold him back from Carmelo Anthony. He was understandably angry about the sucker punch but you have to find a way to control yourself in these games. Especially if you just had a broken wrist.

I would imagine that the NBA will come down pretty hard on all the participants of this little party. Clearly both teams are at fault and hopefully both coaches are held accountable. Usually you like to see when your team is scrappy and tough, but this whole situation just seems more petty than anything. The amazing thing about the Knicks this year is that they are miserable, but I'm more fascinated by them this year than in a year where they're pretty good. They're the car wreck you just can't stop watching.

Comics update

I haven't written much about comics lately, although I've been buying comics every month. So I thought I'd wander a bit and just jot down a few notes about some books I've been buying.


Uncanny X-Men, X-Men
I'll start with the books that got me into reading comics in the first place. The X-Men titles have consistently been some of the most popular comics over the last 10+ years. Sometimes the stories are great and sometimes they're not so great. In recent years I've felt they've bordered more on the "not so great" as I haven't found the stories particularly compelling and some of the characters act in ways that don't seem to make particular sense. For the most part, I found that Grant Morrison was the best writer of the past five years, but as other readers on the Internet have pointed out, it seemed like Marvel tried so hard to "undo" everything that he had started immediately after he left. That was too bad, because I thought he did a great job of writing stories that were similar to older stories with a new twist. In that span a number of other writers have tried their hand at writing the X-books including Joe Casey, Chuck Austen, Peter Milligan and fan-favorite Chris Claremont. I thought that Casey's ideas were pretty good and offbeat but it seems the audience wasn't ready for them. Austen had no grip on how the characters should speak and would act (I particularly remember moments where She-Hulk slept with Juggernaut, her client, and where Iceman was acting like a jerk-off homophobe). Chris Claremont wasn't shy about how much he loved Rachel Summers and Psylocke, since they appeared in virtually every issue he wrote. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't too impressed by these characters. The House of M crossover that affected the Marvel U also affected these books indirectly, although it seems like no "important" people have lost their powers. Milligan was writing tongue-in-cheek, but it didn't take, and for the most part I felt his stuff didn't do anything.

That brings us to the current writers, Ed Brubaker (on Uncanny) and Mike Carey (on "adjectiveless"). Brubaker has assembled a varied cast, that includes Nightcrawler, Havok, Polaris, Warpath, and a de-powered Professor X as they pursue Vulcan, a new character from the Deadly Genesis mini-series. They are all headed into space and to confront the Shi'ar empire. This story, with art by Billy Tan, isn't too bad, but I just don't really care about the X-Men in space. It looks like this story will try to set up the X-Men / Shi'ar relationship now and I'm curious to see if Brubaker has any plans for once (and if) any of the X-Men return to Earth. Meanwhile, in the other X-Men title, illustrated by Chris Bachalao, a new group of super-powered beings come to challenge a random assortment of X-Men including Rogue, Cable, Iceman, Sabretooth and Mystique. While on the one hand I want to say, "haven't we done this before?" with "new groups" of super-powered beings that aren't mutants, the story doesn't bother me yet and Carey has provided good reasons for this particular cast to stay together. The art is inconsistent and hard to read sometimes which can hurt the story, but the eclectic style also sort of fits.

Overall, both books are on the right track, but they're not up to speed yet. Still, it's some of the best stuff in either title over the last five years.



Ultimate X-Men
I used to read nearly every title in Marvel's Ultimate line, but now that's been pared down to two. Ultimate X-Men has been quietly consistent in its quality, and it's almost never late, but I can't help but wonder about the choices to "re-do" normal Marvel U continuity with every story. Can't we have original adventures that don't re-introduce Ultimate counterparts to Marvel heroes and villains? That said, current writer Robert Kirkman has done a nice job with all the characters so far. This current storyline introducing Cable and Bishop may have some potential but I wish the book had an artist who drew more detail than Ben Oliver. In my opinion, aside from Ultimates, the rest of the Ultimate Universe is pretty crappy right now (they're crossing over with Squadron Supreme?) and I'm not too excited for Ultimate Wolverine by Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner, but this title has been steady. It hasn't improved a ton, but it hasn't gotten much worse either.



Astonishing X-Men
Joss Whedon's foray into the X-Men has been well received by fans, and for the most part, I'd agree. He has picked up on some of the threads from Grant Morrison, and the art by John Cassaday has been very nice looking (although I prefer his work on Planetary). The current story has suffered by its slow release schedule, but this group of Beast, Cyclops, Wolverine, Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde is my favorite of the X-books. I'm not sure how much longer Whedon is on this book, and I wonder what will happen with it next, but I hope it's something good.



Runaways
Moving from the book that Joss Whedon writes to the one that he will write, Runaways. Currently, it's written by Brian K Vaughan, one of my favorite writers in comics. Vaughan has been throwing twists and turns ever since Runaways started. The current volume, up to issue 22 hasn't been as surprising as the first, but it still has had its share of enjoyable moments. Vaughan seems to be building to a big conclusion for his run on the series he created that's due to end with issue 24. Joss Whedon will pick it up afterwards for 5-6 issues, and I expect it will be pretty darn good.

Ex-Machina
This is Brian K Vaughan's creation in the Wildstorm universe where a super-powered man, Mitchell Hundred, becomes the mayor of New York City. The book has a limited run (will end at about 50 issues) and is about halfway there at this point. In this fictional universe, super-heroes are non-existent. It is full of Vaughan's trademark twists and also sprinkles in some social commentary as well, often presenting both sides of an issue fairly well. It is illustrated by Tony Harris, and I would highly recommend it.

Y The Last Man
The book that started Brian K Vaughan's success is a Vertigo title called Y: The Last Man. I've been reading this story in trade paperback form and the most recent volume (#8) just came out. If you're not reading, the premise is, that all the males on earth have died except one man and his pet monkey. Before I picked this up I had expected it to be a fanboy fantasy, but instead it's been more of a sci-fi thriller and full of twists and interesting ideas. One of the best stories out there, and I believe it's being made into a movie.



Captain America, Daredevil
I'll take these books together because they are both written by Ed Brubaker and both characters I never really was a big fan of.

Before reading this current volume of Captain America, the only other time I had read this title was when Mark Waid was writing it. I really enjoyed the blend of action and espionage at the time. Ed Brubaker is doing an even better job, mixing together a spy story with Captain America action. He has also blended together the Civil War crossover quite well.

I started reading Daredevil when the Marvel Knights imprint began with Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada. While Brian Michael Bendis did an excellent job with making Daredevil's identity public and turning his life upside-down, he never really finished off his story, and towards the end was telling the story in non-linear fashion, which I found a bit confusing. Ed Brubaker has brought this back to a gritty crime story and so far has had his share of surprises. It's very good, perhaps the best Daredevil yet.

The best compliment I can pay these titles is that every month I consider books I might stop buying, and when I get to Captain America and Daredevil, while I don't have as much invested with the characters, the stories are just too compelling.


Civil War
The big event in the Marvel Universe has had Iron Man and Captain America at each other's throats over whether or not super-powered humans should be registered with the government. Delays in the artwork have had fans upset as well. So far, I don't mind the story that's being told here, although I have not picked up any of the crossover titles. It seems like there are some holes in the core series (most of which I have filled by reading articles on the Internet). While I find the artwork great, it seems to me that some of the characters are acting funny (especially Reed Richards and Spider-Man). I also still can't sympathize with the pro-registration side. I've always liked Mark Millar's writing but this title seems a little silly. I will admit, it's a ton better than the last major Marvel event, House of M.

Ultimates 2
The other book that Mark Millar writes. When is the last issue coming out? I don't expect to buy volume 3 or 4 which will be written by Jeph Loeb. The art by Bryan Hitch is beautiful and when it all ends, this will be a classic tale. But it still hasn't come out. I also was wondering where the "evil Thor" that was in issue 10 went. I think he was involved in invading Washington DC but by issue 12 wasn't around at all.


52
The major event in DC Comics has been the weekly comic, 52. Word has it that this series has been so successful that DC and Marvel both plan on launching other weekly titles. It is nice to have a weekly titles, although it's expensive. But the story keeps moving each week which is nice. Some of the stories are more interesting than others, but for the most part, I'm enjoying the ride. It's been treading water a little lately, but I expect for the second half it will pay-off. The book is written by a team of Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison and Mark Waid. The voice seems very consistent, and it's pretty hard to pick out who wrote what. I will reserve my final verdict when this book is completed.


DC's All-Star line
There are two titles that make up DC's All-Star line, All-Star Superman and All-Star Batman. All-Star Superman is written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quietly. It's a fun book when it comes out, but it's been plagued by delays. Each issue has a self-contained story that is also part of a larger story. All-Star Batman is also delayed, and written by Frank Miller, illustrated by Jim Lee. Lately Jim Lee mentioned that he is responsible for the delays. How bad are the delays? Here's the schedule for the first four issues - September '05, November '05, December '05 and March '06. That's right, one issue in 2006.

DC has to be somewhat upset about how this line has launched. Since September '05, the two titles have shipped a total of 9 issues. This was supposed to be a sort of answer to the Ultimate line - top name creators with continuity-free stories. The titles still sell well, but many fans have noted their distaste for the weird characterization of Batman by Miller. If Batman's only going to be $3 / year, I'll probably keep buying.

Planetary
Speaking of books that come out once per year, Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday has had 9 issues published since 2004. But each issue is great, and I'm never disappointed. In my opinion, it's completely worth the wait, although I don't always remember the story each time. I think this will wrap up soon (issue 27 might be the finale?) and will probably read very nicely in a trade paperback format.


Wildcats, Authority
Recently it was thought that the Wildstorm super hero line could be re-launched with big name creators. So with one of my favorite writers, Grant Morrison, paired with one of my favorite artists, Jim Lee, how could Wildcats miss? The first issue, which came out in October, actually wasn't too shabby, but the next issue isn't due until at least March '07! Not the best way to launch a line (see All-Star Batman). Meanwhile, Authority, also written by Morrison and illustrated by Gene Ha, started out with an issue that didn't even feature the title characters. This doesn't seem like the way to launch a new line. Still, I like Morrison enough to just wait and see what happens here.

Seven Soldiers
I just read the finale to the Grant Morrison mega-crossover. Anyone who says they know what this was about who is not named Grant Morrison is full of it. Some of the mini-series were pretty cool ideas but the conclusion didn't make much sense to me.


Batman, Detective Comics
Grant Morrison, who has written a number of books mentioned above, is also writing Batman. I've collected comics for a long time, and surprisingly I've never bought Batman or Superman books on a regular, monthly basis. Also, I'm surprised how many mainstream books Grant Morrison is writing these days (All-Star Superman, Batman, Authority, Wildcats, 52). Anyway, the first arc deals with a possible biologic "son" for Batman. For the most part, it seems to read like a pretty standard super-hero story, with a few occasional scenes that have the bizarre flair Grant Morrison is known for. It's not bad, but nothing special at this point.

Paul Dini has been writing standalone, one-month stories for Detective Comics. So far they've been nice, but they don't really seem to be building towards anything. Hopefully, they'll come together as something more cohesive soon.



Action Comics, Superman
A lot of big names have been writing Superman and Batman lately, but I don't feel like any of them have really used the "One Year Later" concept to really re-establish the characters. This title by Richard Donner, Geoff Johns and Adam Kubert may be the one to do it. Donner and Johns seem to be taking an approach to this title similar to the movies, which may upset continuity buffs a bit, but I think it will allow for some fresh ideas. Upcoming will be a 3D issue, which sounds intriguing. Already there have been some plot points that seem to be related to a few of the Superman movies.

Superman is by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco, a great creative team. While it's been beautifully illustrated, I don't quite know what to make of the story yet. It seems to be going towards an alternate future, which is somewhat interesting, but also feels very played-out.

Wonder Woman
I've picked up the first three issues of this series written by Allan Heinberg (Gray's Anatomy) and beautifully illustrated by Terry Dodson. The series comes out irregularly, which is sort of annoying, but has been pretty interesting so far. I've never really been a fan of Wonder Woman, but Heinberg's Young Avengers for Marvel got so much acclaim that I figured it was worth a try.


Justice League of America
Brad Meltzer has been writing the re-launch of Justice League of America. He has said that he was a big fan of the series when he was growing up, and so far it shows. Meltzer seems to be setting up a bunch of clues for a mystery, and I enjoyed his set-up in Identity Crisis. The best issue so far was Justice League #0, which showed Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman interacting in different points in time, past, present and future. The low point so far, three issues in and Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman are still sitting at table!


Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins
The flagship Wolverine title was just involved with the Civil War crossover, and it was written by Marc Guggenheim, who has done a bunch of television writing. The Civil War crossover wasn't bad. I liked how it integrated into the overall Civil War story, even though there were some elements that seemed absurd even for a Wolverine comic. Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi are coming on soon to deal with the relationship between Sabretooth and Wolverine. I find Jeph Loeb to be very hit-or-miss, with the hits being great and the misses being pretty average. Bianchi's art (above), however, is pretty darn good. Here's hoping they tell a nice story.

Wolverine: Origins is written by Daniel Way and illustrated by Steve Dillon. This book came out of the House of M, where Wolverine suddenly remembered everything about his past. I'm still not really enjoying this book. I can't exactly say what's missing but it just seems like there's a lot of characterization that's missing, particularly since Wolverine has been interacting with a lot of different super powered guest stars. I still wonder if Wolverine really needs to have two different titles, and sincerely wish that he were not a part of the Avengers.

The Future
I usually peruse the solicitations for future months, and I have to say that I'm not that impressed with the new offerings. While I'm enjoying 52, I don't anticipate picking up a weekly series from either DC or Marvel. These big events that are supposed to change everything are getting on my nerves a bit, especially in the case of Marvel, where I don't really like the characterization (see: House of M and Civil War). I think Marvel is pretty reliant on just about three writers - J. Michael Straczynski, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar. While I've enjoyed stories by all three, I've been pretty turned off by Bendis and Straczynski lately. That's a personal taste of course, but it doesn't look like things will change at Marvel any time soon. As for DC, I'm enjoying their books quite a bit, but the One Year Later gimmick hasn't impacted the titles as much as I had expected. Maybe it will just take more time to figure out. Comics and my tastes tend to be cyclic anyways. Just a few years ago, I was pleased as punch with the things that were going on at Marvel and DC, but now I'm not enjoying them as much. Here's hoping the next upswing will be soon.

Jets and the Playoffs

It's getting hard to temper my enthusiasm for the Jets this year. When the year started, I couldn't believe all the people who said, this team doesn't have any talent, and it's going to be one of the worst in the NFL. While they did have a horrible season last year, there was plenty of context to it as well. They lost both their starting and backup quarterbacks (Chad Pennington, Jay Fiedler) in the third week of the season. The injury count didn't stop there. Running backs Curtis Martin and Derrick Blaylock, starting center Kevin Mawae, slot receiver Wayne Chrebet, starting TE Chris Baker and starting OLB Eric Barton were also lost to injury. The Jets may not have been as good as their 2004, 10-6 Playoff edition, but no team in the NFL these days would be able to withstand this number of injuries. Add to the mix that the offensive line was getting older and couldn't adapt to the new offensive coordinator's scheme, and things were not looking good.

Now they're being considered a team that will likely make the playoffs and everybody seems so surprised. I don't really understand why. Maybe it's because they had a young coach and so many rookies on the team. The running back situation was also pretty muddled at the beginning of the year. Those who make predictions should have taken a look last place / NFC North-containing schedule and healthy lineup and realized that they should improve at the very least on their four wins.

But I worry that the team will get too high on themselves after their great performance last Sunday. Their 31-0 lead in the first half was about as good as any team could play, and they excelled in all facets of the game. But the Packers aren't a great team and while the rest of the schedule looks pretty easy, teams in the NFL are close enough together that even a bad team can beat a good one if the circumstances are right.

At least the Giants are having their own mini-crisis that helps to deflect attention from the Jets.

By the way, Nick Saban and Romeo Crennel just got votes of confidence. We'll need to keep our eyes on them.

Robot Chicken

If you don't watch Robot Chicken, you should. It's a 15 minute stop-motion animation show co-created by Seth Green on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. It airs Sunday nights and is absolutely hilarious. Check out these two clips from the most recent season below:

Emperor Palpitine receives a phone call:


Mr. T and the Foo Fighters:


Season 1 of Robot Chicken is already available on DVD.

Blogger Beta

I just moved this blog from the "regular" Blogger to the Blogger beta. Seems like there are only two useful additions, both of which affect the back end. The first is it's easier to search for old posts, and the second is that posts can be labeled. That seems about it. I'll report any changes as I see them.

Cooperstown

I recently got to spend some time in Cooperstown, which is best known for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. If you live in the northeast, it's worth taking a trip as it's only about 3-4 hours from NYC or Boston. Here's some photos of the trip. The town seems to be dependent on tourists, with the peak of the season being in the summer. Since I was there in November, it was a lot quieter.


The best way to sum up "downtown" Cooperstown is that people describe things in relation to the one traffic light.


This is a view of the back of the Hall of Fame. It's kind of hard to see but there are statues of a guy pitching to a catcher, and also through those glass windows are all the famous plaques.


Some turkeys at the Fly Creek Cider Mill, just outside of town. The cider mill is more of just a store, but for a quarter you can hand feed these turkeys and they'll eat right out of your hands.

The town is pretty nice, most people could spend a weekend getaway there and enjoy it. It's much quieter than the City and is a small town that is surrounded by other small towns and farms.

Black Friday

I spent Black Friday in Maryland this year. Here are two photos from the day. This first one is from Circuit City around 4am, 1 hour before opening. The line was pretty long, and the green awning on the left isn't even the entrance to the store. The actual entrance was about 100 feet to the left. The scene got pretty bad once the doors opened, and people really ran around and formed a mob entering the store.

This second photo is from inside Staples, around 6:15am. Staples opened at 6am, but look how crowded it is!

November 20, 2006 - Houston Rockets at NY Knicks

I swore that this year I wouldn't give any money to the Dolans and Cablevision as far as the NY Knicks were concerned. But I couldn't help but notice that lately there was a lot more advertising for Knicks tickets, which meant that there were probably tickets available. So instead, I hit the streets, and got tickets to section 62, normally $100 each for only $60 each. In return, I got a great view of the Knicks and the Rockets. The game was actually fairly close, but the Rockets ended up winning behind strong efforts from Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. Sadly for the home team, the best Knicks players at the game were Allan Houston, Patrick Ewing and Charlie Ward, all who were either watching the game from the sidelines (Houston, Ewing) or coaching (Ward). Amazingly, Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury hardly played any minutes at all, a fact that did not go unnoticed in the next day's tabloid papers.

Crabcakes

If you're ever in the Baltimore area, I highly recommend that you visit G&M, a restaurant that has some of the best crab cakes I've ever had. You can get a platter of two crab cakes that are 8oz each of lump crab meat. There's almost no filler and they are delicious. I took a photo of one that I brought home to heat up later but it doesn't really do justice to the cakes. You can order them and have them delivered anywhere.

Too Much Madden 2005

I should probably increase the difficulty to "All-Madden" level from "All-Pro." My team was the Jets, of course.

And yes, I'm still playing Madden 2005 (which came out two years ago).

Remember?

Remember this? A George W. Bush interview on salon.com with David Horowitz, May 6, 1999. I've been thinking about this famous response lately.

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Q: In a year when Republicans lost ground or had trouble holding on to it, you won reelection with 69 percent of the total, 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, and the endorsement of every major Democratic politician in the state. How did you do it?

A: First, I did in office what I said I would do. I campaigned on school reform, accountability, charters and choice. And I signed bills to that effect. I campaigned on tort reform, juvenile justice reform and welfare reform, and on all I signed bills. And shared credit. I didn't try to take all the credit, I shared credit with the people, both Republicans and Democrats, who helped achieve these reforms.

Second, I showed the people of Texas that I'm a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another.

Third, during the course of the campaign, I didn't talk about the past; I talked about the future. I laid out additional plans for tax cuts, for school reforms like ending social promotion, by initiatives that would say to kids that if you carry a gun illegally there will be a consequence, and I think the people of Texas listened, because I had credibility, and had done what I said I would do.

Always Low Prices

I went to Walmart for the first time on Monday. There isn't a Walmart in any of the areas of New York that I've grown up or lived in, so I didn't know what the big deal was. We have Costco, Kmart and Target, but none of them prepared me for the spectacle of Walmart.

I had heard so much about Walmart, the way they do business, they way they screen products, the way they treat employees, and of course, the greeters.

When I stepped inside, there was a burly man in a blue Walmart apron in a wheelchair handing out shopping carts. "Ah! The greeters." I thought to myself, although I had imagined a pair of grandparents instead of the wheelchair fellow. Then as I stepped further into the store (or warehouse), I was taken aback by the giant supermarket that was connected to the giant everything else store. It was sort of similar to Costco, but at Costco you feel like it's "land of the giants" since everything comes in such large, bulk packaging. Walmart has individual items. And it was much larger than any Target or Kmart I'd ever seen.

The prices were so low, too. It's no wonder this company is so big and has such an impact on our country. I was so blown away by the enormity of the whole experience, I forgot what I had gone in there to buy (I had to go back the next day). I never did get a chance to consult the workers regarding their wages or health insurance. There was a Walmart greeter, however.

Quick Sports News

The Yankees will face the Tigers in the first round of the playoffs. The Tigers have sort of limped towards the post season, so it will be interesting to see if the Yankees can take advantage, especially with the possibility that Randy Johnson will be out. I wonder if the A's can knock off Minnesota, and make sure the Yankees won't have to deal with Santana. Also, I can't wait to see how Kenny Rogers does against the Yankees, a team he has had a lot of trouble beating in the past. The Tigers have some nice players but I think the Yankees can take them.

As for the NFL, I haven't been this excited after a Jets loss in a while. Normally, a Jets loss sends me into a tizzy, but this one was a gutty, aggressive game. The offense was able to move the ball quite well but the defense couldn't stop the Colts at all. In the 3rd quarter, with the score tied 14-14, Jets coach Eric Mangini decided to go for the TD on 4th down at the Colts 2 yd line over kicking a FG. The next play, Chad Pennington was picked off in the end zone. That would have never happened under the previous coaching regime. Between going for it in the close game, and then also kicking an onside kick in the second quarter when the score was tied 7-7, it's clear that Mangini is willing to play an aggressive style of ball. It almost paid off, as the Jets came very close to winning the game, but Peyton Manning was able to drive down field with no timeouts and less than two minutes left. Part of the reason that I wasn't too sad about the loss is the way that on the last play of the game, the Jets attempted an amazing circus play with multiple laterals and almost got away with it!

Here's the play

Hasselhoff

8/11/06 - LA Angels of Anaheim vs New York Yankees

I remember going to this game but I don't remember that much more about it. I think Corey Lidle started it and the Yankees lost. We had nice seats that I got on eBay and the weather was great.

Croc Hunter

Sadly, the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, passed away yesterday after encountering a stingray. He was a pretty charming TV personality, and his programs were always entertaining. But I suppose that his line of work was also particularly dangerous. It always impressed me how fearless he was around the animals.