Fritaturday Eve

Hello everyone in the entire world. Apologies for the lack of content this week, but I tried to post a rather sizeable entry on Tuesday and a mechanical failure made me lose it. My frustration with Blogger.com caused me to wait until now. But I shouldn't bite the hand that hosts my website for free, so I'll hold my tongue now.

Anyhoo, a few quick hits from the week that is/was:

1) R.I.P. Kirby Puckett. He was a great player, with 10 All-Star appearances in 12 seasons, over 2,000 hits, a lifetime .318 batting average, and two trips to the playoffs, each of which netted him a World Series ring. The Sofa King will tell you that he was a different person off the field, but baseball people love him and he was the face of the Twins for over a decade.

2) R.I.P., what was left of Barry Bonds' reputation. Personally, I've never liked Barry Bonds. I hate his smug, disdainful attitude toward the media and the public, I hate his me-first attitude, I hate he uses his family to gain sympathy, I hate his sense of entitlement, and I hate how a person who was perfectly situated to have a Michael Jordan-esque relationship with baseball fans continually chose to be a whiny, sulking, angry child at every possible opportunity.

Now it looks like the new book Game of Shadows is going to blow the doors off Bonds' systematic cheating and shed light on how he has been a human pharmaceutical experiment since 1998, when his jealousy of Mark McGwire's home run chase led him to start taking all manner of steroids and illegal substances. Sports Illustrated excerpted some relevant passages from the book this week, and they certainly get down to all the dirty details.

The authors of the book, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, are journalists of impeccable credibility that are respected in the sports world. I sincerely hope this book causes Barry Bonds to retire immediately, and in shame. I don't want him breaking Babe Ruth's record, but mostly I don't want him breaking Hank Aaron's record, so I'd be happy if he retired short of 755.

3) It's Championship Week! The Big Ten Tournament kicked off in Indianapolis today, with Minnesota, Penn State, and Michigan State moving out of the first round. The Beloved will host Minnesota Friday at 5:40 local time, and I'll be in a rowdy sports bar cheering them on. With a win, Iowa will play the winner of the Illinois-Michigan State game on Saturday just after noon local time for a shot at the semi-finals. After that, it'll be time to strap on the dancin' shoes. Iowa is looking like a solid #5 seed right now, and a run in the Big Ten Tournament will likely move them up to #4. This is a fun time of year when your team actually has a chance to do some damage in these tournaments.

4) The UAE port deal seems to have caused a rift in the GOP before it imploded today. G-Dub promised to veto any legislation blocking the deal, while congressional Republicans and Democrats promised to pass such legislation with an overwhelming majority anyway, thus forcing the Prez to explain to the American people why he was overriding the legislature's wishes to sell our ports to an Arab country known to support terrorism. That'd be a tough sell considering what comes out of the White House regarding the war on terror. I'm not certain this deal would have put our country at risk (federal and state authorities still would have handled security for the ports), but I suppose maybe this is a better-safe-than-sorry situation. It's interesting that in an election year, GOP congressmen are all too eager to defy the President when their constituencies are concerned about something like port security. These elections are going to be fun to watch.

5) Box office receipts are down 8% last year. I attribute this to higher-quality home theater systems, ease and availability of pay-per-view and digitally transmitted films to the home, general economic downturn, and rising costs of seeing movies. Personally, I have invested a ton of money in my television, DVD collection, and sound system at home, but I love to go to the movies. I like real laugh tracks at comedies, I like seeing all films on the big screen, and while you don't necessarily talk during the movies, I still consider it a social event. I hope that going to movies doesn't become a thing of the past.

6) Speaking of movies, I watched the Oscars last weekend and enjoyed Jon Stewart very much. Also, I was very glad to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman win Best Actor and Ang Lee win Best Director. Everything else was not important to me. I think the Crash-Brokeback Best Picture controversey was much ado about nothing. Even if it was a homophobic bias in the Academy, so what? Brokeback probably got more publicity because of the scandal allegations. And it already set an all-time record for buzz about a movie anyway. Don't worry, activists for gay rights: everyone in the nation has already been innundated with stories about Brokeback Mountain. It's a really good film, and it is and has been recognized as such.

Other Oscar notes: Most Beautiful Woman there was (no surprise here) Jessica Alba. Honorable mentions go to Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley and Salma Hayek. Michelle Williams sure cleans up well too. Best pregnancy/post-pregnancy rack goes to Jennifer Garner, with honorable mention to Rachel Weisz.

7) Now this is an exercise trend that I fully support.

8) Glad to see that the NFL finally worked out its labor troubles and we will continue to have lockout-free football in the fall. It's good to know that rich, spoiled, selfish athletes can come to an agreement with richer, more spoiled, and more selfish owners over how they are going to split the billions of dollars they make each year by selling tickets to games for $85 each and authentic jerseys for $250. You guys are truly the model of the charitable, philanthropic human spirit.

Go Hawks tomorrow. If I don't get a chance to post before the end of the day, have a great weekend. t