George Lucas has tried to have every copy of the horrendous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special destroyed. Apparently it was two-hours long. I saw it in my youth, but as I was just five in 1978, my memory of it was quite hazy.
I seem to remember that that is where Boba Fett made his debut. That doesn’t show up here, but it’s still fun for nostalgia and cheezy laughs to watch this youtube edit of the special. Sure you’ll lose five minutes of your life, but what were you going to do with them anyway?
I don’t think the Celtics were expecting this. I know I wasn’t.
The Hawks have shown that they’ve got a lot of fight in them. Last night, early on, the two teams nearly came to blows, and you know what, the Hawks didn’t back down. I was happy that the Celtics, especially Sam I Am, were protecting their teammates, but you have to hand it to Atlanta. Not only did they not back down, but they threw the big punches in the game. Every time the C’s seemed to have the game figured out, the Hawks had the answers.
Coming back to Boston is huge for the Celtics. Game Five will be the one that determines the winner of the series, like you needed me to tell you that.
This is good for the C’s, I think. They really haven’t been tested in a while, and let’s face it, they’ve pretty much been able to go on cruise control since March. Now they’re being challenged and we’ll learn a lot about this team with how it responds. Of course, not getting into foul trouble early would also be good.
Having three of your starters pick up too many fouls in the first quarter hampers you all the way. With the home court advantage I think the Celts should be good to go in game five.
Honestly it should probably be 3-1 right now and the C’s should be about to close these guys out. But, I’m still satisfied right now because it’s just fun to have that team playing meaningful games in late April and not making tee times.
If you look at the American League East standings right now you’d swear that they were printed backwards. After a sweep of the Red Sox this weekend, the Tampa Bay Rays or is it the Tampa Devil Rays (did they drop the Devil or Bay, I forget sometimes) and the Baltimore Orioles are tied atop the East for first place. Really?
Baltimore hasn’t won the division since 1996. Tampa hasn’t won the division since, well, um, ever. Actually they’ve never finished higher than fourth in the five team division.
The Red Sox are a game back in third, followed by the Yankees and Blue Jays.
It’s a crazy world we live in. As if you needed another sign that the world’s coming to an end. There’s no rice. Oil costs a zillion dollars per gallon. The dollar is worth less than a Canadian loonie. China’s got the Olympic games. And the Devil Rays and Orioles lead the East.
Excuse me while I put on my tin foil hat and open up the bunker.
The Patriots drafted Jerod Mayo (Tennessee) with their first pick in today’s draft, taking the linebacker 10th overall. I haven’t seen any newscasts or any speculation as of yet, but I would not doubt that Mel Kiper and the rest of the talking heads said “it was a stretch” and that the Pats were “reaching” by taking a guy that some thought would drop to the second round.
The Patriots do things a certain way. They wanted to drop down from No. 7, and they did. They probably wanted to drop down from No. 10 when they landed there, knowing that they wanted Mayo, but that they could probably get him lower and stock up on some more picks in the meantime. They probably couldn’t find a deal they liked, so they took the player that they wanted.
With the results that that Patriots have had over the last several years, can you really give them a hard time about “reaching” for a pick? I think not. They have shown that they know what they’re doing, far more so than just about every other organization in the NFL. So, even when people start to lose their minds on WEEI this weekend and into next week, let’s just sit back and remember that the Patriots have more than just a clue what they’re doing.
I’m not going to pretend to know much about the guy. I’ve seen him play, but never really paid attention to him in particular. I don’t really even get into college football. It sounds like he could definitely help them right away, and at a spot where they need help. Personally, I’d rather have Rosie Colvin back instead of a raw rookie playing a lot next year, but in the salary cap era you have to think ahead and you have to maximize your high draft picks. The Pats liked what they saw in this kid, and couldn’t pass on the Mayo.
I don’t tend to get too political. I’d rather deal with sports, music, movies, you know, the fun stuff.
But, seriously, what’s the deal with China? You see there is a Chinese teacher suing a CNN contributor for saying bad things about China, it’s people and its products (see story here).
Lawsuits don’t get much more frivolous than this one. Here’s the thing China, we are America. There are times I wonder if our civil rights still mean anything, but we aren’t China and we’re allowed to have opinions about your products and call them junk. I’m sure that there are some fine things made in your country, but there certainly is a lot of junk coming into our country from yours.
And let’s not get started about civil liberties being violated, or the whole Tibet thing. Your government is basically an outdated joke. Don’t get me wrong, I think the American government is pretty horrible right now, too. If it were up to me we’d start all over. I’m sure George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are rolling over in their graves with the way that the current generation, and a good portion of the previous one too, have screwed things up. But, as bad as things are, we could always be China.
So, feel free to sue me China. I don’t think there’s much you can get from me, and good luck coming and collecting anyways. Oh, and enjoy having a horrible Olympic Games this summer too. I just wish that our government — which I have already said is quite screwy — had the gumption to boycott your sham.
There’s something funny that happens whenever teams from Falmouth and Barnstable get together, especially boys’ teams. Maybe the girls have ill feelings about the opposite schools, too, but the vitriol seems to be much lower at their games.
Yesterday we had a Falmouth and Barnstable boys’ lax game up in Hyannis. The Red Raiders won the game, which was a bit surprising because I think that Falmouth’s one of the best teams in the state this year. But, it sounds so cliche, but you really can throw out the records when those teams play, and the BHS goalie played out of his head. Marc McNaughton was fantastic. He put on a clinic throughout the game, it was impressive.
Also impressive was the amount of penalties that the teams accumulated in the second half. The hitting was solid, but the refs lost control and it got out of hand. Once they lost control, things started to deteriorate. Barnstable’s coach, a former Falmouth player, was thrown out of the game. Another Red Raider was tossed the from the action. Falmouth kids started to get called for illegal checks. It got pretty ugly, which was a shame because for three quarters the game was outstanding.
I wish there were some simple fix for these schools to play one another and just have a great game, minus the extracurricular stuff. But, when it comes to contact sports (football, hockey and lax mostly) the games just get crazy. I’d actually say that the lax game was the most nuts out of all three. The hockey games are actually worse in the stands than they are on the ice. Thankfully not as many people go to lacrosse games as they do hockey, and far fewer actually understand the game.
Its too bad that they won’t be playing again, though. The schedule has just one BHS-FHS game in 2008, and because FHS is considered a D2 team and BHS a D1 for state tourney play, that means it’s officially over until 2009.
If you love sports, you love when these teams play. Sure the games might get a little dirty at times, but you can’t fake that kind of intensity. Barnstable and Falmouth is really like Yankees-Red Sox, Coke-Pepsi, Apple-Microsoft. It’s not fabricated, it’s not hype. It is what it is, an unmatched rivalry in these parts.
There is nothing better in sports than a Game 7. They’re the be all and end all. Two teams have battled for the better part of a week, putting everything they have into winning for it all to come down to four quarters or three periods or nine innings (every football playoff game is a Game 7).
Tonight, we get a treat with the Boston Bruins taking on the Montreal Canadiens in Game 7 in Canada. It wasn’t supposed to get to this point. The Bruins were supposed to be fodder for the Canadiens. The B’s muck it up style was not supposed to fly with the up-and-down the ice Habs.
So much for what the “experts” thought, huh.
I’ve watched a good deal of this series, which is saying something since I’ve cared little about the Bruins or the NHL in general over the last few years. But this year’s team is worth watching. They give an honest effort every night, and that goes a long way.
Who knows if they’ve got another miracle in the tank, but after the way they’ve performed the last two games, I like their chances. You could argue that the B’s should have won this series in six. They were robbed in Game 2 by a horrible penalty call that led to a power play goal in a one-goal game. They’ve been the better team on the ice for the series. They must be losing their minds in Montreal right now.
So be in front of your TVs tonight and prepared to watch what should be a fantastic war on ice. If the Bruins win this series it will be the biggest thing to happen in hockey around these parts since the early 90s. That’s a long time to wait for the diehards. I hope the B’s give them their payoff tonight.
It’s been a little while since our buddy Hank gave us anything to write about. Well, being a Steinbrenner, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut too long, now could he. Yesterday he opined about the future of Joba Chamberlain. The best part is that Brian Cashman came back to say that Joba The Pitcher will remain in the pen for the foreseeable future, regardless of the owners wishes.
I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now. There is no question about it, you don’t have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don’t do that. You have to be an idiot to do that.
I’m laying on the bed watching the Celtics game and am totally, absolutely, entirely mentally spent.
Lyra and the kids went to her dad’s house yesterday while i stayed home for an appointment that had been arranged about a month ago. I took the dog for a walk around 12:15 and we cleared the entire radius of our cranberry bog in about 20 minutes, which is pretty good seeing that it’s at least 1.5 miles round trip. I got back just before 1 PM and decided to jump into the PokerStars 5K guaranteed $5 tournament.
I love that tourney. It’s in my price range and they give you 3,000 chips to start. If you know what you’re doing you can do well. I doubled up early to over 6,000 chips when I cracked aces with a straight (never slow play your aces) and I was off from that point.
Seven hours later I was on the bubble for the final table. Unfortunately I didn’t make the final table, which cost me a couple hundred bucks at least. First place paid a little over $2,300, which would have been a sweet score, to say the least. I ended up finishing 11th overall, for about 2,200 less than first.
It stinks to be that close and not take it down. It’s still a great accomplishment personally, though. In total there were well over 3,300 entrants into the tourney. I survived the bad players, some bad beats and my own fatigue to be on the cusp of my greatest score. Unfortunately that will have to wait. I was close, but no cigar today. Still, I’m pretty pleased with the end result.
It was hard not to think about the plasma TV I was going to buy with the winnings. Next time I guess. At least there’s enough to pay the cable bill this month. That’s something, I guess.
I haven’t given the Bruins a lot of love in this space, but I threw on Game 6 of the Canadiens series tonight and it was one heckuva hockey game. Back-and-forth throughout the third, and they pulled it out. It was fun to watch, I’ll tell you that.
The thing that really grabbed me was just how LOUD that Gahden was tonight. Every time something good happened for the B’s the place erupted. It was pretty cool to hear. I’m by no means a diehard Bruins fan, but I have rooted for them since I was a kid. My love for the team has waned over the past few seasons, like most disgruntled fans I wanted to see them invest in the team and stop screwing around.
I still dont’ feel like management has honestly gotten after it, but the team works hard, and that goes a long, long way with fans. There are a ton of diehards that have stuck by that team since day one, and I’m going to root for them for that reason. The B’s need to win Game 7 for all of those fans that have stuck with them through thick and thin over the last few years.
Game 7 will be a lot of fun, and it would be the most significant pro hockey happening around this hockey-loving place for a long, long time.
The Patriots drafted Jerod Mayo (Tennessee) with their first pick in today’s draft, taking the linebacker 10th overall. I haven’t seen any newscasts or any speculation as of yet, but I would not doubt that Mel Kiper and the rest of the talking heads said “it was a stretch” and that the Pats were “reaching” by taking a guy that some thought would drop to the second round.