Let's try this whole thing again

So this kind of ended. A lot of shit went on last fall, and I never bothered to update this thing.

Anyway, I'm trying this again over at 2Scott2Blog. If you're interested, come find me over there.

Tom Brady's Career is Over

There have been some that have compared Brett Favre's current situation to what Joe Montana did in the early 1990s, leaving the team he was synonymous with to end his career with an also-ran. There is a quarterback currently reliving the end of Joe Montana's career, but it's not Favre. It's Tom Brady.

Scenario 1: Picture it! San Francisco, CA, January 1991. The San Francisco 49ers hosted the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game. The Niners, lead by Joe Montana, already a legend and according to some the best QB ever, had won the Super Bowl the previous two years, four in the previous decade, and were on the verge of the fabled Threepeat. The Giants had already lost to the 49ers during the regular season, and had lost their star QB to season-ending injury.

Outcome: The Giants beat the 49ers in a great game decided in the last minute. The Giants won Super Bowl 25, Joe Montana missed virtually all of the next two seasons, never played significant time for the 49ers again, and his career eventually sputtered out in Kansas City.

Scenario 2: Picture it! Glendale, AZ, February 2008. The New England Patriots are the designated home team against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. The Pats, lead by Tom Brady, already a legend and according to some the best QB ever, had won the Super Bowl three time in four years, as well as all 18 games they played that year, and were on the verge of cementing their dynasty with an undefeated season. The Giants had already lost to the Patriots during the regular season, and had lost their star tight end to season-ending injury.

Outcome: The Giants beat the Patriots in a great game decided in the last minute. And now Tom Brady will miss this entire season.

So I'm calling it: Brady is done as a Patriot. Just you wait. In a year or two, I'm gonna look like a genius.

Either that or I'll have to delete this post.

Someone Remind Me It's Football Season, Part II

I forgot Monday Night Football.

Note to Pizza Hut

If you're going to blanket the airwaves with ads for your new pasta dishes, it would be nice if your restaurant sold pasta dishes.

Actually, two notes: If you're going to blanket the airwaves with ads for your new pasta dishes, it would be nice if your restaurant sold pasta dishes, and your website sucks.

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So Pizza Hut has been advertising for a while now that they now sell pasta dishes. They looked like they might be good, but not enough to get me to go out to a Pizza Hut and get some. Lately they've been heavily pushing their bacon macaroni and cheese. So after seeing Tyler Florence on the Food Network making bacon macaroni and cheese, I finally wanted some badly enough to go to Pizza Hut.

First I tried to order through their website, where there was a discount on first-time web orders. The Pizza Hut website makes you jump through so many hoops in order to get an order in - I eventually gave up after they said that I would have to provide my driver's license when I picked up my food. I'm not getting carded for macaroni.

So I went out to the nearest Pizza Hut in a huff. After waiting about ten minutes for someone to take my order, I attempted to order some pasta, only to be informed that they had no pasta. Great. That was certainly worth the trip. Makes me feel like Pizza Hut has its act together. And makes it very likely that I'll buy more pasta from them in the future. Mission Accomplished, guys!

A Momentary Decrease in the Net Entropy of the Universe

So MSNBC has replaced Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann with David Gregory as the host of their big-event election coverage. Meh. Color me unenthused. Gregory isn't any worse than a lot of other newspeople I guess, but I have no interest in watching him on TV. The one thing he can do on a show to make me more interested is to get out of the way and let the other people talk.

But I'm sorry to see this change for another reason: The MSNBC coverage of the Democratic National Convention was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The entire thing was such a mess that I couldn't turn away. Look at the combination of factors that came together on MSNBC for four nights:

• It started with Olbermann, who has found his niche - as well as an ever-increasing audience - by sharing his opinions on-air and continues to go with what works for him.
  
  
• This enboldened Matthews to speak more freely of his opinions.
  
  
• Matthews tended to sometimes go on a little long with his opinions, to the point of sniping on-air at Olbermann - and at off-screen producers about a minute before that video begins - when they tried to move the show along.
  
  
• Some genius at MSNBC decided it was a good idea to put them outside, at the train station, leading to prolonged segments of Matthews and Olbermann making faces while a train whistle drowned out anything they might have tried to say, to the point where they couldn't even toss it to someone else because the whistle wouldn't stop long enough.
  
  
• There were also frequent communications problems between the hosts outside and correspondants and guests inside the convention hall, when they did manage to introduce them.
  
  
• Speaking of being drowned out, the Rachel Maddow cheering section frequently interrupted the discusion panel. (You can skip to 1:15 in that clip if you don't care what they're cheering about)
  
  
• Speaking of Maddow, she and panelmate Pat Buchanan don't exactly agree on much, and they had a few contentious interactions during the week, including when Maddow said flat-out that she thought Buchanan hated her (3:30 in) and Buchanan didn't deny it.
  
  
• And if you thought you had Buchanan figured out, in a sure sign of the apocalypse, he showered effusive praise on Barack Obama for his acceptance speech on the last night of the convention. It got him a Maddow-like cheer from the live crowd.
  

So for four nights, we had news hosts spouting their opinions about everything that came up, Matthews and Olbermann sniping at each other, Maddow and Buchanan sniping at each other, trains drowning out the hosts, the Maddow cheering section drowning out the discussion panel (when the hosts managed to introduce them), video problems cutting off folks inside like Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw (when the hosts managed to introduce them). There was open praise for particular politicians and performers spreading like a virus: From Olbermann and Maddow, who that's expected from; To Matthews, who said of Obama's speech "I've been criticized for saying he inspires me, and, ah, to hell with my critics," (and got a Maddow-like cheer); To Michelle Bernard, who wept and called it "The most amazing evening of my entire life," and said she was glad to be alive to see it; To Eugene Robinson, who said Michelle Obama's speech filled him with pride and made him think of his wife, mother, and sister; To as mentioned before Pat Buchanan of all people, who not only loved Barack Obama's speech, but got so swept up in talking about Michelle Obama's speech that he even talked about how much he liked seeing conservatives' devil incarnate Ted Kennedy that night. And all of this is just what happened between 7pm and midnight (Eastern time), let alone what went on the rest of the day.

All of this gave the overall impression that everything was breaking down, like the collapse of normalcy. It was like watching the increase of net entropy in the universe, live on cable TV. It was awesome, almost as good as the speaches. It was enough to keep me from watching the convention on C-SPAN like I usually do.

There was a similar vibe during the MSNBC coverage of the Republican convention, though a bit more subdued with Olbermann not there live, panel lineups juggled a bit, and a somewhat more mixed crowd, politically. Clearly MSNBC was frightened of the compelling television they had created, so they shuffled the lineup, and now they're doing it again. We'll see if the new setup can be as compelling as those four days in Denver.

An Unforeseen Confluence of Disparate Interests

Dave Batista is one of the judges on tonight's episode of Iron Chef America. They're serving him snails.

Of wrestlers, Batista wouldn't have been my first choice to judge. Although he is generally solid in his wrestling promos, he doesn't have the most engaging style in off-the-cuff interviews. He tends to speak in a quiet monotone, as if he's somewhat shy or unsure of himself. I thought he did all right, all things considered. He had one good line when Chef Bobby Flay served a snail pizza, saying (paraphrasing from memory), "I was so excited when I saw you making pizza, it's the only dish I recognized."

Someone Remind Me It's Football Season

I find I'm having a lot of trouble adjusting to the fact that football exists again. I only caught one game the entire NFL preseason, and again this wee I forgot until mid-afternoon that there ere college games on. This is particularly annoying as I tend to spend large parts of July anticipating the return of sports worth watching. Maybe it's because between the Olympics and the conventions there's a lot of other stuff going on right now.

Everyone Else Has One

So I started a blog. Maybe someday someone will read it.