American Airlines

Strangely enough, the two TNT games are being played in arenas sponsored by American Airlines. That's right, game 1 is the Lakers at Heat (American Airlines Arena) and game 2 is Knicks at Mavs (American Airlines Center). Is this the only sport with two arenas named for the same corporate sponsor?

Waiting Game #2

Which happens first?

HTC Thunderbolt released by Verizon

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark opens for real (not previews)

New NFL Labor Agreement

Sheen

Wow, I didn't realize how crazy Charlie Sheen was until I watched his 20/20 interview.

CNN is citing Twitter?

Watson beats humans. Yes, we all know the story by now. But CNN posted a story about it and at the end, cited reactions from "Twitter users." That's right, they wrote, "Several Twitter users were awed by the computer's smarts."

How is this any form of journalism? If they wrote, "several random people on the street were awed by Watson," you'd think, who cares? Why should we care what "several Twitter users" think? Are they even real people?

I don't read CNN that often - do they do this frequently?

Bieber Fever

I know Justin Bieber is kind of a dork but did you see him at the Grammys? I thought it was a great performance with Jaden Smith and Usher. The kid seems pretty talented. This was the first time I watched any part of the Grammys in a long time, and I was impressed. Gaga was fun, Cee-Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow weren't bad, and Mick Jagger was pretty entertaining too.

The Bieber story is kind of amazing, a Canadian kid puts his videos on YouTube and suddenly becomes this big pop star. It will be interesting to see how his career goes. Most kid pop stars don't do well in the long run career wise or personally.

Waiting Game

Which will happen first?
Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks
Or
HTC Thunderbolt 4G phone released on Verizon

Fireman Ed

I love the Jets, and Fireman Ed starting the chant at the games is a ton of fun.

But Fireman Ed has his own iPhone app?
And it's not free?
Which is more surprising?

Jets vs Pats Round 3

After a tight playoff win last night, the Jets go to Foxborough to play the Patriots - site of their 45-3 loss earlier in the year. Now for some observations and predictions:

Jets are 2-1 vs the top 2 seeds in the AFC this year
Tom Brady is 1-2 vs "Ryan brothers" coached defenses this year
Jets are 2-2 vs Patriots last two years
The last time the Patriots scored less than 30 points was in November, vs Cleveland!
In their two losses this year the Patriots only scored 14 points
The Jets have lost only 1 game this year when they score a TD on offense

The Jets will use the 45-3 loss as motivation to show that "nobody shows them any respect" and "nobody thinks they can win." What will be hilarious is how the Patriots will feel the same way! We will also hear a lot of "we haven't done anything yet" and "they have a good football team over there."

The following quotes will be food for the media "I didn't come here to kiss Belichick's rings" and "Peyton Manning studies more than Tom Brady."

And so, here's how it boils down.

When the Jets have the ball: They need to score. They should expect to need to put up 30 points. The Patriots like to take away the things you do well, so they will stuff the box with 8 and dare Sanchez to beat them. Interestingly, the Jets ran against 8 in the box against Indianapolis. In addition, the Pats will probably try to shut down Edwards and make Keller and Holmes do the heavy work. I wouldn't be surprised if the Jets try to do a few misdirection things with formations like they did with Pittsburgh where they get in run heavy formations and try some play action. No drops!

When the Patriots have the ball: They will score. The key is keeping them to FG's but an aggressive Belichick showed that he's willing to go for it on 4th & short in the last meeting (even when up by 30+). The defense did a good job creating 3rd & longs vs Indy, and will have to do the same here. The Jets are built for beating the Colts, but less so for the Pats. NE is going to show a lot of heavy run formations and then pass to their pass happy TE's. In the game vs the Colts, the Jets also used a lot of DB's and again, it wouldn't be surprising if they did the same here. The Jets would probably be content to let NE to run against them because that plays to their strengths and it means they're shutting down the pass.

Special Teams: The Jets have a better chance of breaking a big return but also a better chance of missing a FG or shanking a punt (12 yd punt?)

So who will win? Patriots are big favorites here. Jets have to execute perfectly and fool Brady with formations in order to win this one.

Additional footnote: You know the "home unbeaten streak" of New England, and the "interception-free streak" of Tom Brady? Apparently this doesn't include last year's playoff game where they lost and Brady threw 3 INT's.

Congress

Let me get this straight - Congress has funded 9/11 rescue workers' health care, ratified the START treaty, repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and renewed the Bush tax cuts, while renewing unemployment benefits, all in the last month?

Maybe we need to have elections more frequently?

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Just saw the movie - it was pretty good, but the book was better.

Interesting casting - aside from Michael Cera, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman make appearances. Also funny is that Mae Whitman has a prominent role and she was Michael Cera's girlfriend on Arrested Development.

Kieran Culkin was also in the film - I didn't know he was still acting.

I lose some credibility here... I didn't realize that Jason Schwartzman was Rushmore until about 5 minutes ago.

The Rock's New Movie

Looks like the casting director for The Rock's new movie, "Faster," was a lost fan - Shannon (Maggie Grace) and Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) both are in the film!

R-Word

Is it safe to say Willow Palin is a retard?

Too hard for me to resist.

Rest of the Jets Season

Barring injury, the Jets have a pretty tough schedule to close out the season. It's a good thing they've started out well, even if some would say they were lucky.

Texans at home
Benglas at home (Thanksgiving)
Patriots on the road
Dolphins at home
Steelers on the road
Bears on the road
Bills at home

Looking ahead, their biggest trouble is going to be the lack of pass rush. The Texans and Bengals home games are games they are supposed to win. The Patriots will be tough. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago people said that the Patriots were throwing in the towel by getting rid of Moss? Let it be known that I wasn't one of those people. It would be hard to think that just one WR could offset an entire offense. The Dolphins are always a tough game, even if they are down to their 3rd string QB. Steelers and Bears on the road could both easily be losses. Bills at home should be a win.

If they win the "should" games - Texans, Bengals, Dolphins and Bills, and lose the others, it would mean an 11-5 finish. Looking at the Patriots, they have a pretty tricky schedule as well - Colts, at Lions (Thanksgiving), Jets, at Bears, Packers, at Bills and Dolphins. They have 3 games they "should" win, and if we use the formula above and they beat the Jets but lose the others, they would also finish 11-5. I do have a feeling they'll beat the Bears on the road. I think the Lions game is tricky for them, but if Stafford is out, then it's less so.

My prediction - the Patriots win the division and the Jets come in as wild card. The remaining games they don't have in common - Jets face Texans, Bengals, Steelers, and the Pats have the Packers, Lions and Colts. Slight edge to the Jets there, but I think the Pats will win the head-to-head match up which will make the biggest difference.

The Death of Spider-Man

Marvel teased a storyline called "The Death of Spider-Man" for their upcoming books. Turns out the story is in their alternate universe, the Ultimate Universe. Hard to get too excited about this - after all, "anything can happen" in the Ultimate Universe and nearly anything does - even Wolverine is dead in that universe! But since anything can happen, it feels irrelevant and I don't think anyone is really going to care.

Beard Papa's

Beard Papa's, the great cream puff store, is opening in Miami. It opened about 6 years ago in NY, and has already gone through the "cool-> hip-> really popular-> no longer cool" phase. Their cream puffs still are quite delicious.

Poor Cubs

The last time the Giants won the World Series was 1954. That was 56 years ago. When they won the World Series, the Cubs had not won for 46 years (1908).

The Texas Rangers have never won the World Series, even when they were the Senators. That team was founded in 1961. That's a 49 year span. But in 1961, the Cubs streak was 53 years.

Poor Cubs.

LeBron's mean tweets

So LeBron retweets some of his "hate tweets" trying to gain some sympathy.

He says in the article:

"I just want you guys to see it also. To see what type of words that are said toward me and towards us as professional athletes. Everybody thinks it is a bed of roses and it's not."

When Hank Aaron or Ken Griffey Jr got hate mail and death threats, that makes me feel bad. When Jason Taylor got death threats, even THAT made me feel bad. But when LeBron complains about it somehow it just seems immature. Is that too much of a double standard?

Let's not get too excited about the Jets...

The Jets are 4-1, they look good and have been executing well. Still let's not get too excited - it's only October and frankly they haven't played that many good teams. NE is pretty decent and Baltimore looks strong but they lost that game. Miami is probably about an average team when all is said and done and Buffalo is poor. I also think the Vikings are very overrated this year. So before we crown the Jets as Super Bowl contenders, let's see how they stack up against the top teams.

Who's David Less?

They obviously meant "David Price" here. I wonder if they're using dictation software or voice recognition because that's a strange typo.

No Soda for People on Food Stamps?

Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban soda purchases using food stamps in NYC. Interesting thought - sugared soda is certainly full of calories and very cheap, and likely contribute to obesity. So the suggestion would ban "beverages with more than 10 calories per 8 ounces, and would exclude fruit juices without added sugar, milk products and milk substitutes." Interesting questions arise from this, of course:

Should the government be involved in these types of personal choices?
Considering that food stamps are a federally backed program, isn't it reasonable that they can set limits?
Is it even fair to suggest that people on food stamps (poor people) are part of the obesity problem?
What about diet soda?

Interesting approach. I like Bloomberg's ideas, even if I don't necessarily agree with them.