Monday, March 27, 2006

Basic Instinct 2, Sequels

I don't follow movies as closely as I used to, but I was surprised to hear that this weekend, Basic Instinct 2 will be opening. Upon further research, I confirmed that the first movie was made in 1992, nearly 15 years ago! I don't like when sequels come out so far after the original. That got me thinking about other films. Long gaps like this aren't as uncommon as I had thought. Unfortunately it looks like the movies that come after the long gaps are rarely as good as the previous installments.

There were 8 years between installments of Bad Boys. The Terminator franchise had two big gaps - 7 years between 1 & 2, then 12 years between 2 & 3! Checking further, Godfather 3 came out sixteen years after Godfather 2. Likewise sixteen years passed between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. Ten years separated Get Shorty and Be Cool. Fourteen years passed between Predator 2 and Alien vs. Predator, (7 years between AVP and Alien Resurrection) although now it's more of a stretch to find the relationship.

Eight years passed between Fletch and Fletch Lives, the same amount of time as two other Chevy Chase movies, Christmas and Vegas Vacations. Eddie Murphy waited 7 years to make Beverly Hills Cop 3, and 8 years to make Another 48 Hours. Eleven years passed from The Mask to Son of the Mask. 1980's Blues Brothers had a sequel in 1998, aptly named, Blues Brothers 2000.

Kevin Smith's Clerks 2 will be due out 12 years after the original. If a fourth Indiana Jones feature were to happen, it would be eighteen years since the last one. It will be about 16 years if Rocky (as rumored) hits the screen again. Die Hard 4, also rumored, would be 11 years after the last installment.

By the way, Bambi got a direct-to-video sequel 64 years after the original. I guess the Basic Instinct gap shouldn't have surprised me.

I'm sure I've forgotten critical

Side note: While we're talking about Sharon Stone films, the movie "Slither" that opens this week keeps making me want to say "Sliver," the movie about the voyeur that Sharon Stone was in following the original Basic Instinct.

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Music Releases

It seems to me that all the bands I listen to tend to release their albums all at the same time. Last year, Dave Matthews Band and Audioslave released albums within a few weeks of each other. This year, it looks like a banner year for Pearl Jam, Audioslave and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The hype machine seems to be in full force. I know that no artist would suggest that their upcoming album is not something fans and the public would enjoy, but it is interesting to hear bands say that the next album is always the "best one yet."

That stretch in May-June will be a pretty exciting musical month for me. I'll be seeing Pearl Jam at Continental Airlines Arena on June 1. Pearl Jam's upcoming album can be preordered at their website with the bonus of receiving MP3's to the album at 12:01am on the release date, as well as an additional live recording from a New Year's Eve concert in 1992. I'm leaning strongly towards picking that up, since those Ten-era concerts were probably pretty wild.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers just released a good portion of their recent catalong on iTunes with some pretty intriguing bonus songs from their albums Blood Sugar Sex Magik, One Hot Minute, Californication and By the Way. Unfortunately the bonus stuff is only available if you purchase the album digitally. Since I already own those albums, it's too bad. I wish I could purchase those tracks (2-3 per album) individually.



Pearl Jam - self-titled album, release date: 5/2/06
"It's easily the best stuff we've done but also some of the hardest stuff." -Eddie Vedder


Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium, release date 5/9/06
"...the best thing we've ever done." - Flea

Audioslave, Revelations, release date June 2006 (album art not available)
"My vocal cadence is different, my approach to the vocal is different. And with this band, we have the ability to go into more of a soul/R&B direction and have it be authentic. It's exciting." - Chris Cornell


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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Yao Ming Playing Well


Yao Ming is playing well, but the are not. It's too bad for Yao, who is putting up the best numbers of his career, that Tracy McGrady is out. While the games might be relatively meaningless for the Rockets at this point, Yao is playing great, with double-doubles in 12 of his last 14 games, scoring 20 points or more in every game during that stretch. I might have to try and catch a few Rockets games on TV while their season's still going.

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Knicks Beat the Pistons



What's that? The basement-dwelling beat the Eastern Conference Champion ? I would have never believed it. They won the game in green uniforms? Wait a second, isn't there another team (in the same division) that wears Green, Irish-influenced uniforms?

Is this a new Knicks tradition? Those are ugly uniforms. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if they played the on St. Patrick's Day and broke those green duds out?

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Monday, March 20, 2006

Doughnut Plant


379 Grand Street (between Essex & Norfolk Streets)
New York, NY 10002
Phone/Fax: (212)505-3700

I went to this place on Saturday morning. It was well worth it. Much better than Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts, this store usually sells out of doughnuts by 2pm. We bought a ton of doughnuts including chocolate cake, cinnamon cake, coconut creme, jelly and orange glaze. The cake doughnuts were the worst, and the coconut creme was the best. The doughnuts were huge and I had a sugar high for a while afterwards. Check it out if you're on the Lower East Side. I was going to try and post a photo but for some reason the Blogger photo uploading is having problems.


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Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Pearl Jam's New Album

has a new self-titled album coming out in May, their first in three or so years. It's their first with their new label, , and it looks like the band is making a pretty big push, with a website makeover, release of their new single, World Wide Suicide, on myspace (it's no longer available) and now the single available on , complete with a second track from the album, Unemployable. They've also announced a tour. Maybe my favorite band will actually become current again.

This is my first post in March!


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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Knicks Car Wreck

Watching the is like watching a car wreck. You can't stop watching but it's so gruesome!

Take this Steve Francis trade. Francis isn't a bad player, but is he going to improve the Knicks? Now they have Francis, Jamal Crawford, and Marbury all fighting for playing time in the guard position. If Francis and Marbury play alongside each other, they'll be undersized at the guard position. Also, they are both are point guards who can score but aren't known for their passing ability.

Larry Brown, who supposedly emphasizes defense, now has Marbury, Francis and Jalen Rose, all players who are considered to think more about scoring than defense.

Contract-wise, things aren't much better, the trio of Francis, Marbury and Crawford are locked up through 2008-2009 season. As an aside, before this trade, 4 of the 12 players on the worst team in the league are locked up through 2008-2009!

The funny thing is, even though I don't want watch this team play much basketball, I'm totally interested in the soap opera outside the court! I don't know who to blame / credit for this mess but Larry Brown, Jim Dolan and Isiah Thomas have put together the best sports version of "unintentional comedy" I've ever seen.


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Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Thirst Quencher

Over one year ago, I pointed out that had a silly marketing campaign where they labelled their water bottles with the tag line, "Thirst Quencher."

Here's the image again.



This absurd marketing line seems to have spread to their sister company, Deer Park.



Water: a thirst quencher. I think the New York Times should put a label on that says, "reading material" and clothes should include a label, "so you don't go naked."


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Sunday, February 05, 2006

Knicks Acquire Jalen Rose

The KFB Sports corner continues...

The Knicks acquired Jalen Rose and a first round draft pick from Toronto (Denver's pick) for Antonio Davis.

I understand the general philosophy of this trade - get rid of a player who isn't going to make an impact on the team in general because he's older and has an expiring contract (Davis), acquire a first round draft pick (because they gave away theirs - see Eddy Curry trade), and get a player with a high, but expiring contract next year (Rose). But at the same time, this strategy hasn't been working!

Let's say the Knicks never made the Curry trade. They would have had at least the fourth pick in the draft, would have had Tim Thomas's expiring contract to trade away and not have to take on Jalen Rose's max contract. They'd also still be bad.

This sort of trade is what has gotten the Knicks into their current hole. I was trying to do some calculations with the help of HoopsHype. If they hadn't made the Curry trade, Kurt Thomas trade or Jerome James signing, I think they would have been under or close to under the cap next year. Isiah's got to have a little patience instead of just prolonging this wait to get under the cap. No single player, short of LeBron James, could make this team instantly better.


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World Baseball Classic

With all the players backing out of the World Baseball Classic in March, and questions about how well people will pitch because they haven't warmed up, perhaps MLB should consider moving the classic to November, after the World Series. That way, if a player got a minor injury they could recover in the three months before spring training. The pitchers would also be in shape in general and have less risk of injury.

I think the World Baseball Classic might be a cool exhibition but the quality of play can't be that good, or at least not as good as it could be.


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Super Bowl XL

Unfortunately, I won't be able to see the game tonight. Rather than grace you with an awful pick, here are some questions I have about the game in general:

1) In two weeks, can't you convince yourself of anything? People have invented all sorts of reasons how different things could happen. There's one group that thinks for sure that Pittsburgh will blow Seattle out. Another group thinks Seattle has a chance and can win easily. With two weeks to think about it, I think people can come up with any reason for anything, and convince themselves it's right.

2) Is Pittsburgh's running game that good? It seems like from the playoffs they've done very well throwing short pasess. Their average rush per carry in the regular season was 4.0 yards, which is actually way below Seattle's 4.7.

3) Is the 6th seed in the AFC really better than the 1st seed in the NFC? That's what the oddsmakers say. Granted, if Roethlesberger had been healthy the entire year, the Steelers may not have been #6 (after all, they were 15-1 last year).

4) Will there be any good commercials? Usually there's a ton of buzz for the commercials to look out for. Not so with this game. The pre-game buzz has been fairly low even for the game itself. Did you know Jerome Bettis grew up in Detroit, MI?

5) How good is Seattle's defense? They are 16th in yards allowed and 7th in points allowed. Their rush defense was 5th overall, was that because they were 25th against the pass? Their defense was pretty poor a year or so ago, can a team really turn it around that much in one year?

6) Does it make a difference that Pittsburgh plays a 3-4 defense? Seattle's offensive line is supposed to be one of the best, but they haven't had to match up against a 3-4 this year except for Houston in week 6. The speed and coverages of the 3-4 are a little different than the 4-3, so could this be an edge?

7) The coaching match-up of this Super Bowl may be between two Hall of Famers. Bill Cowher would beat a lot of his demons by winning this one. Mike Holmgren would go down with a select few in professional sports as coaches who have won championships with two different teams. You can check that out - many coaches have brought two different franchises to the championship level but very few have won two with different teams. Of course, the coaches don't play on the field.

8) What happens with the shirts that say "Super Bowl Champions" but are for the losers. For example, there must have been a ton of "Super Bowl XXXIX Champions - Philadelphia Eagles" merchandise. Does it just get destroyed? I think that stuff should be given to the homeless.


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Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Post Office Shooting

There was a shooting at a California post office facility this morning. I was thinking, why are post offices associated with shootings? What is it about the employees or working conditions that have driven employees to killing their coworkers? Is there something about the hiring practices that are looser than other government jobs, or do they have such horrible working conditions? Certainly it seems like there is a lot of monotony in the job, and customers at the post office aren't particularly nice, but is that any different than other places? It's so bad that if someone is going crazy a common phrase is, "going postal." Nobody ever "goes UPS" or "goes FedEx."

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Monday, January 30, 2006

Tribal Sovereignty




In honor of the State of the Union address tomorrow, I thought I'd post this amusing clip that I just saw today.

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Sunday, January 22, 2006

Two Underdogs

Today, two major underdogs vie for berths. I'll try to pick the games. Since the "seeding" format, each Super Bowl has had either a #1 or #2 seed in it. So it seems unlikely that both underdogs would win this week. Also, both home teams are undefeated at home this year, so picking against one of them would be breaking a streak.

Pittsburgh at Denver - If the can blitz the way they blitzed New England, I think it will be harder for the than people think. Everyone is high on them the way they played in Indianapolis, and rightly so. Maybe this year the Steelers won't be as tight since they aren't heavy favorites and Cowher can make it back to the Super Bowl (he is 1-4 in Conference Championship games, including several disappointing losses). However, while Pittsburgh's defense should get a lot of pressure on Denver (just as New England did), I think people forget the trouble QB Ben Roethlisberger had with presure last year in the playoffs against the Jets and New England. Denver's front 7 should be able to harass Roethlisberger more than Indianapolis was able to, and I think that will make a big difference. I like Denver here.

Carolina at Seattle - I don't know what to make of the injuries to the . I have to think they travel well (and Jake Delhomme has only lost one game in the playoffs ever, the Super Bowl versus New England). So I have trouble picking against them, but I think the being at home may be the biggest factor. This game is "strength versus strength" with the Panther defense versus the Seahawks offense. I'll go with Seattle, if for any other reason than to cover my ass and get at least 50% of my picks correct. I'd be shocked if both home teams lose.

Another "rule" to watch for - on Conference Championship weekend, one game is usually a blowout and the other is usually close.

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Saturday, January 21, 2006

You Can Call Us Aaron Burr...

...From the way we're droppin' Hamiltons!

allows embedding of videos on your website. Pretty cool discovery. This is the recent SNL smash hit, "the Chronic." I think part of the reason I find this funny is because it's based in New York.





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Iran Bans CNN (then lifts the ban)

Iran banned for a brief period after a mistranslation CNN's translation agency made of a speech by the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I am hoping for Iran to misunderstand the in the same way a Chinese paper misunderstood .

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FEMA for Kids

Disaster and emergency preparedness geared towards children. Is this the 21st century "Duck and Cover?"






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Bank Robber

This story probably won't inspire the next episode of . A man in Massachusetts had been robbing banks saying he had a bomb in his bag. It turns out, the bag had books in it. One book was a phone book, with his name and address on the outside.

I guess this breaks the Spaceballs rule of "evil will always triumph because good is dumb."


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Saturday, January 14, 2006

24 Season 5

The fifth season of starts tomorrow night, and boy, am I excited! There are four episodes airing between Sun and Mon, and back-to-back is how I tend to enjoy the show the most. Season 4 is the only one I didn't watch consecutively, and it was the one I enjoyed the least. So hopefully this jammed pack set of episodes will provide some relief! On Black Friday '05 I picked up seasons 2 & 3 for $20 each at Best Buy, so I'm pretty psyched to see Jack Bauer break the rules all over again.

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NFL Divisional Playoffs

Well, it looks like we're down to 8 teams in the . I missed last week's games, but from the scores, it doesn't look like I missed that much. Here's a brief analysis from someone who hardly follows the NFL these days except to find out if the will get Eric Mangini, Patriots Defensive Coordinator, as their head coach.

Washington at Seattle
The are generally tough at home, but the have been really tough down the stretch, which reminds me of teams like the 2001 Patriots or 2000 Ravens. So which will be a bigger factor here, injuries to the Redskins or Seattle's recent playoff futility? Seattle the last two years has reminded me of the recent iterations of Colts or Vikings that made the playoffs strongly and then lost tragically. I'm not sure what will be the stronger factor, but I think the Redskins keep this one close. Washington takes the 9.5 point spread and possibly even the game.

New England at Denver
I don't like to bet against Tom Brady who is undefeated in the playoffs. The fact that the beat the earlier this year doesn't mean much to me. A strange Monday Night game in 2003 where the Broncos with Danny Kannell as QB nearly beat NE (and Belichek took a safety in the end zone) gives me hope that Shanahan could be the coach to beat the Patriots, but I'm not banking on it. Patriots take this one. By the way, a Patriots victory would further prolong the Jets coaching situation, so my pessimistic inner-Jets fan has to go with New England here. I'll take the Pats. I think if you can only watch one game this weekend, this might be it.

Pittsburgh at Indianapolis
If the win this, I'd be shocked. The Colts were playing great, got a little derailed, but should be back on track, and at the dome. I'm not so sure about that spread, though. While the Colts destroyed the Steelers in the first match-up, this one should be a little closer, but even closer means the Colts cover.

Carolina at Chicago
This game made me wonder, "what's the over/under?" since both teams aren't known for their offense. I think the can take this one but it's not really based on any fact or observations, other than that the are pretty inconsistant. I think there's some home advantage here as well. I suspect the game will come down to the turnovers and Steve Smith. If Chicago keeps the ball safe and contains Smith, they should win. This will be a close game where field position will make the difference. I'll take Chicago.

So the KFB predicts that next week we will see:
Washington at Chicago
New England at Indianapolis

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