not real time Olympics

It’s Winter Olympics time. All the thrills, spills, and chills. A chance to cheer on the winners and make fun of the losers. So far we’ve seen history made, expectations met, and hope fulfilled.

Too bad it’s not live in most places. If you live on the West Coast like me, you are treated to the utter professionalism of NBC Sports by seeing everything up to three hours later. Thank goodness for Twitter, otherwise it would be damn near midnight PST before you saw Evan Lysecek spin his way to a gold medal. Try to complain to the brass, and all you get is, “You can’t please everybody.” The thing is, nobody’s pleased. Even the people who get to see stuff live have to suffer through commentator prattle, seemingly endless human interest montages, and a billion commercials. Let’s no forget webcast blackouts, and a homepage that leaves much to be desired. All in all, NBC and Dick Ebersol get a big thumbs down.

We now know why the network projected a 400 million dollar loss by broadcasting the games. They’re salty and they are making the viewers pay for it. I say that NBC sports deserve a big “FU” back from us. It’s bad enough they screw up their tennis coverage every year, but now to turn the Winter Olympics into one giant clusterfuck is ridiculous.

Alert to CBS and ABC, if you get a chance to cover the Olympics in the future, look to NBC as a guide for what NOT to do. Now I’m off to twitter to catch the latest Olympic news..LIVE.

Bastids.

hopey mcchange >>>dopey mcsame

If you haven’t heard, the ex-governor of Alaska spoke to Tea Party masses at their 1st ever convention. For $100,000 they were given standard GOP talking points with a lil’ dash of Libertarianism on the side. I guess the pressure was a bit too much for her because she was caught cribbing notes during the Q&A session after the speech.

Huh, making fun of the President for using a teleprompter while putting a black Sharpie to good use on your hand is pretty stupid. But then again, this is Palin we’re talking about here. A politician who will never be in life associated with intellect. But who am I to quibble? If the  Right Wing of the GOP  Tea Party folks like it, I love it.

Give me more of that Hopey McChange. They can keep Dopey McSame and her crib notes.

picture via HuffingtonPost

the worst…

Political ad in the history of creation made its debut to universal derision. Carly Fiorina, the former head and destroyer of Hewlitt-Packard is running for Senate in California. Last year, her campaign website sought to rename the state ”CARLYFIORNA”  which made the world chuckle and mock her in the midst of the recession. Now she’s paid for an attack ad in which a dude crawls around in a sheep costume trying to make her opponent look like..well, no one actually knows.

It is, I repeat: THE WORST POLITICAL AD EVER. Of course this means it has become THE twitter trend topic of the day. And those in the political know are including “demonsheep” in their water cooler discussions. It’s so bad, that her Republican opponent has set up his own website in order to raise money to help thwart the spread of demon sheep.

How can anyone take Fiorina seriously when she’s responsible for such appalling foolishness? Of course this is good news for Barbara Boxer,unless she decides to make an ad featuring angelic Chihuahuas.

The ad:

I’m still scratching my head, and checking the lawn for demon sheep.

new year; new direction

As you all may have noticed, I have not been updating my blog as regularly as I have been. A lot of this has to do with some life events. Some of it has to do with frustration. When I first started this blog, I just thought of it as an outlet to vent my feelings about the 2008 election. I then started to write about my interests: tennis, movies, and music. The thing was, there a million plus political blogs, and another million tennis, movie, and music blogs. What could I possibly say that was any different?

Soon I began to become dispirited with blogging. What was the purpose? What exactly was I trying to say? Was I writing for myself or for attention? These are questions that I have yet to answer. I haven’t decided to stop blogging, but I need to find my voice. 2010 is the time for me to really find my passion and to commit to it. I invite you to stay along as I embark on this journey. I want this to be fun instead of agonizing.

Wish me luck and stay tuned…

cooning guido style

The Italian Community in New Jersey is up in arms because MTV has a brand new show called, “Jersey Shore” which showcases a cultural subset who call themselves ”Guidos”. Guidos are dark-skinned (due to excessive tanning),  have wild hair, have their own vernacular, and spend their time partying, drinking, gelling their hair, and wasting time. Something about this sounds familiar but I can’t put my finger on it just yet… But Italians from the Eastern seaboard and beyond are decrying the show for exploiting ethnic Italian stereotypes. They call the show racist. Again, this sounds so friggin’ familiar. Hmmmm. Due to pressure, two advertisers have pulled out. Undaunted MTV decided to run the show anyway.

That isn’t surprising in the least. Who cares about stereotypes when you’re making tons of money? You know that familiar feeling I kept mentioning? It’s the sense of deja vu. MTV and its demonic sister, Vh-1 have been a showcase for black folks to make fools out of themselves. Now I guess it’s time for them to dig up some more old stereotypes in order to offend a whole new audience. It’s not like I’m placing the blame entirely on the networks, they wouldn’t be able to have these shows if there weren’t idiots out there willing to sell themselves out for a little bit of fame and a $5,000.00 honoriarium.

The Guidos in question say that they are just expressing family and ethnic pride. I could go with that to a certain extent. Say like, if there were was some redeeming knowledge in learning how to gel your hair perfectly and say, “Yo”! Let’s just call all this for what it is: Cooning. Cooning always pays. It’s that simple. Even if there was enough outrage to get “Jersey Shore” taken off, what’s to say that the very next week  MTV wouldn’t come up with, “Chinatown Nights” or some other bullshit?

It’s so easy to sell out now it’s not even funny, nor is it entertaining. Flip any channel and you’ll be confronted with the very worst parts of our individual cultures. As long as there are people willing to buck and shine (in Jersey Shore’s case: Oil and Gel), there’s always going to be someone who’s willing to film it. Of course there’s always those willing to watch.

tears and tears

*Sigh*

Being a Rafa Nadal fan I should be used to this by now. Some big tall power hitter has the best two weeks of his life and decides to blow Rafa off the court. The victor this time was Juan Martin Del Potro and he demolished Rafa 6-2, 6-2, 6-2. Nothing was working: The serve, the backhand, the forehand. Nothing. He was pushed back to nosebleed seats and failed to convert all 5 of his break point opportunities. But with usual good cheer, he smiled, waved to the crowd, and signed autographs for the kiddies. Not before being ambushed by Pam Shriver to give a post ass whupping interview on court. Really? Who’s bright idea was that? Yep. That’s the first thing a player wants to do after they lose, talk about the loss in front a full stadium!

But anyway, Rafa explained later that he had been playing with a muscle tear in his abdomen which restricted his movement. Amazing when you think about it. Getting to the semi finals of the U.S Open playing with that kind of pain. Rafa is a warrior, no doubt. The loss was painful for his fans, but I think I can speak for many: He made us proud. Plus, he’s back to #2. Yaaaasss!

The ladies final was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Nothing was stopping the Clijsters train, especially a novice finalist. To make a short story short. Kimmie won in straight sets and the tears flowed as Jada joined her Mommy on the court. More tears flowed as the hubby joined in the on victory celebration. Don’t get me wrong, Kim’s run was spectacular and made a wild women’s event even wilder, but I’m still stung by the events of the semi final. It’s not her fault, she just went out and played the best tennis of her life in a tournament wrought with ridiculous officiating and rotten decision making. No, the fault lies with the USTA. Their handling of everything was a complete disgrace.

out with a bang

I know I’ve skipped a day or two of my U.S. Open thoughts but because the rain caused so many matches to be postponed, I didn’t think it was necessary to express my boredom. No point in writing about tennis if there’s no tennis, right?

So, after a nearly 48 hour delay Rafa Nadal finished off Fernando Gonzalez to reach the semi finals for the second straight year. It only took him 34 minutes because he was the only player on the court that decided to actually play tennis. He won the tiebreaker without dropping a point and blitzed Fena 6-0 in the third. Talk about out with a whimper.

In the evening, the ladies semi finals got underway. Caroline Wozniacki made it to her first Major final by beating unhearalded (and by me, unseen Yanina Wickmayer). It was a straightforward affair, 6-3, 6-3. Congrats to Caroline. The other ladies semi final pitted Jada’s mom against defending champion Serena Williams. Kim started off strong and never let up. She pinned Serena to the baseline and attacked Serena’s second serve at every opportunity. Ree for her part sprayed errors, double faulted, and basically played like crap. She was outplayed pure and simple.

But oh, if that was it. Unfortunately, some cock-blocking blind ass lineswoman decided to inject herself into the match by calling a foot fault on Serena during the final game. Serena understandably went nuclear and let the lineswoman have it. After pleading her case to the umpire and the tournament referee, Serena was given a second code violation (she got her first after she smashed her racket after losing the first set), and was defaulted. CBS replayed the supposed fault and it didn’t look like a fault to me, nor to Johnny Mac, Mary Carillo, or Dick Emberg. It was bullshit plain and simple. Male players get away with pure murder and are rarely if ever called on it. I’ve actually heard Roger Federer yell, “SHIT” at the top of his lungs and the umpire just smiled at him. I’ve heard Andy Roddick call an umpire a “fat ass” and nothing happened to him. I’ve seen rackets thrown and cracked, balls swiped, and more foot faults overlooked than decency allows. But this particular time with THIS particular player: The defending champion gets a default because she said what a lot of us would like to say to someone who fucks up royally.

Like I said, none of it should never have happened. If blind owl line lady had shown some self control and judgement, Serena would have accepted the loss, Kimmie would have gotten her kudos, and everything would have been everything. Now, for the next few days, weeks, or even months we all are going to be subjected to this sorry display. Serena will be deluged with criticisms from hypocrites far and wide.

Talk about out with a bang.

upsets and ugly shoes

Yep. Someone actually stepped on the court with these joints. Hey, if I was getting a hefty endorsement fee from Adidas then I might consider it. Then again, my pride might get in the way. Luckily American teenager Melanie Oudin has no such constraints. She rocked the shoes and managed to win her first round match.

Day 2 of the U.S Open provided some real excitement. Regarding the ladies: Ivanovic-OUT. Sazay-OUT. Razzano-OUT. Safina-Almost out. The number 1 player barely scraped a victory in her first round match against an Australian qualifier. Between the two there were 80 plus errors. Folks, that’s some seriously ugly tennis. It was almost as bad looking as Oudin’s shoes. It’s not enough to say that Dinara Safina needs to play better if she wants a chance to win this thing. No Safina has to improve her play exponentially if she wants to win. It’s that simple. Winners today included Maria Sharapova, Jelena Jankovic, Elena Dementieva, Shenay Perry, and Christine McHale.

On the men’s side Stanislaw “Stan the Man” Warwrinka’s scalp was the highest ranked one to be taken today. He lost to veteran and former boyfriend of Anna Kournikova, Nicolas Lapentti.  Dr. Ivo Karlovic and Igor Andreev were also shown the door today. Igor lost to young American Jesse Witten. Actually, American players had a pretty good day.  U.S Open Series champ Sam Querry looked dominant in his 1st round match and Jesse Levine took care of business as well.

But naturally most of the attention was focused on the big dawgs Number 4 ranked Novak Djokovic and Number 2 ranked Andy Murray. Both won their matches in straight sets-although Murray had a tougher time against Ernests Gulbis. It’s too early to say how well prepared they are to go all the way but from what I saw there’s nothing to worry about either.

Back to fashion for a minute. The fugg was not limited to a pair of shoes.  Peep this:

I wish I had a better picture of the back of this shirt. The horror of it needs to be viewed in it’s entirety.

Caroline Wozniacki won her match today but she loses cool points with the Stella McCartney designed disaster.

And after her match, Jelena Jankovic and her nightie took a nap.

So good of Maria Sharapova to take time out from guard duty at District 9 to play her match.

This isn’t making me feel good people, there are more first round matches tomorrow.

Again I will be catching live streams during the day. I did catch Murray’s match on ESPN commentated by the Brothers McEnroe. That was quite a coup. Pat and JMac work well together. That’s about it. I am looking forward to seeing the Nadal vs. Gasquet match. To me, that’s going to be the one to watch.

photoshopped and screwed

This month’s Self magazine cover girl is Season 1 American Idol Winner Kelly Clarkson. And doesn’t she look great? She looks all fresh faced and trim and everything. The problem is, that’s not her. Well I take that back. It’s her digitally created doppleganger.  How ironic that a magazine that has the words,  ”Total Body Confidence” on its cover feels the need to photoshop its cover model into some almost unrecognizable fantasy girl.

When this obvious point was brought up to the Editor in Chief of the magazine, Lucy Danzinger stated that it was a standard practice to digitally alter photos. According to her it’s art, not news. She is right in once aspect; digital alteration of photos is a standard practice. Every magazine cover from Vogue to Newsweek features subjects that have had crow’s feet, tummy bulges, and flyaway hair magically brushed away. Pale starlets are given tans and African Americans skin tones are made lighter and brighter. It’s all based on the notion that real people looking like they really do won’t sell magazines.

That’s where Ms. Danzinger has it wrong. As much as we all would like to have our own personal digital alteration program that allows us to wipe away all of our flaws , that just ain’t the way things are. One of the most important lessons all of us have to learn is that we have accept ourselves as we are, otherwise happiness is as much an illusion as that girl on the magazine cover. Hell, the name of the magazine is SELF. What are they trying to hawk? Self love obtained by Adobe? What’s the real message? You can be your best self–only if you’re skinny with no acne?

Kelly Clarkson has always stated how proud she is of her body, so she has to be extremely disappointed that her pride in herself was brushed away with a few keystrokes.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Review

It was with breathless anticipation that I took my seat in the movie theater last night to catch the latest installment in the Harry Potter celluloid franchise. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’m a Potterphile, at Pot Freak, a Harry lover–whatever fans of the books (and movies) call themselves. But after seeing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I’m going to call myself disappointed.

The good stuff first. The film looks great.  The art direction, costumes, special effects and cinematography are first rate. I was also impressed with the casting. Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn was a brilliant choice. Unlike the book’s version of Slughorn-a corpulent and self-deluded blowhard; Broadbent portrayed Slughorn as a twitchy, insecure, and rather pathetic creature. He brought energy and realism to a movie that was surprisingly short of both.  Newcomer Jesse Cave was delightfully manic as Ron’s girlfriend, Lavendar Brown, but the casting director gets the biggest kudos for his choices of Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane who share the role of Tom Riddle (Voldemort). Both young actors bear a striking resemblance to Ralph Fiennes who plays the adult Voldemort and both turn in very effective performances. With Fiennes-Tiffin’s creepy bad seed and Dillane’s dark angel, the movie goer is reminded of just how powerful an enemy Harry is up against.

Now to the bad stuff, and there was a lot. First, although the new characters were dynamite, the regulars were underused and as dull as dirt. From Michael Gambon’s lifeless (huh huh) Dumbledore to Maggie Smith’s listless McGonagall, the main players drifted in and out and left absolutely no lasting impression on me. Even the excellent Helene Bohnam-Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange looked bored out of her mind. Of course Alan Rickman is exempt because he’s the frigging man and Snape is the most awesome character ever. I will say that the filmmakers made the first of many mistakes by failing to stress the underlying conflict between Harry and Snape. Their interactions were limited in the film and their final battle left me more than a little cold.

As for the main players, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron, and Emma Watson as Hermoine they have grown immensely as actors. Radcliffe and Grint especially have developed a well timed comic chemistry. They did their best in scenes dealing with the abundance of teenage  angst. They fell flat though when trying to get through the more salient plot points. Most of the time though they were caught looking expressionless in some of the movie’s most pivotal scenes. I was most disappointed with Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley. She was neither spunky nor intriguing (the traits we Potter fans love about Ginny) and I was at a loss as to what Harry could have possibly seen in her. Tom Felton was passable as Draco Malfoy. He did manage to show a couple of new expressions other than his usual sneer. And he did look very natty in his black suit. I would say something about Oliver and James Phelps who play George and Fred Weasley if they were in the film long enough. They weren’t though so I won’t.

The biggest gripe I have with the film is the storyline. Now I know that it’s next to impossible to add every scene to the book in the film. I wasn’t to upset with the deviations (the muggle bridge destruction, the attack at The Burrow). I had little problem with what they put in because  I had a such a big problem with everything they left out. Now if you haven’t seen the movie and plan to go, you might as well stop here because I’m getting into some spoiler territory. Not too much-but enough…

Firstly, I knew from the fourth film that the writers and the director were painting themselves into a corner with their heavy ass edits. Now, with the end of the 6th film I know why they opted to split the 7th book into two films. It’s going to take both of them to try to explain everything they chose not to in the previous films. In Half Blood, David Yates and company seemed determined to rush the story to the cave scene so that they could show all the cool fire effects. What they fail miserably at is convincing the audience why Harry and Dumbledore had to get to the cave in the first place. Very little attention was made in trying to show how Dumbledore was  preparing Harry to fight Voldemort. No thought was given in trying to portray Harry’s realization that he alone (with no help from the Ministry or even the Anti-Voldemort wizards) HAD to be the one to end Voldemort because he was the one who possessed the weapons in order to do it–something J.K. Rowling did so effectively in the book.

But the one thing that gets my knickers in a twist is the omission of the most important moment in the book. At risk of being called a total spoiler loser, all I will say is this: I deserved this scene. We who adore Dumbledore deserved this scene. I feel cheated and I just don’t understand the filmmakers’ reasoning behind not including it. As tragic as it was, that scene was a beautiful end to a chapter in Harry’s life and it provided a certain degree of closure that he never had before. The true meaning of leaving childhood behind and facing one’s mortality seemed to be completely lost in the quest to make things go boom. What a travesty.

So I give Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince a thumbs down. I never thought I could dislike a Potter movie more than Chamber of Secrets, but there you go.