yabba-dabba d'oh!

i'm just trying to pick up the pieces from the last few days, you know? minding my own business, thinking about football and the sox losing and the yankees losing too, and being psyched to see a hockey game for the first time in years and all this other shit and i can't stop coming back to how depressing it is to see fred flintstone and barney rubble in this new, freakin pathetic midas commercial with these voices that may as well be charlton heston or jerry remy or my next door neighbor, for all they sound like the real thing... man, it's so depressing... i mean i realize the company has to keep trying to make money and it's only a commercial - it's not like there's any new episodes of "the flintstones" or anything but wouldn't it be nice if the new fred voice was even a slight approximation of the real thing? i love that cartoon, and now whenever i see some rerun on cartoon network, i'm gonna think about how awful his voice sounds in the new midas commercial while he's getting slurped by dino or barney's getting his ass kicked by bam-bam...

but i digress... i'm kind of disappointed in myself for not making my picks over the weekend... i was feeling pretty distressed about the red sox getting swept by the white sox on friday, plus i'd just sat through one of the all-time worst high school football games, so instead of coming home and making my selections, i drank several glasses of maker's mark, rendering any productivity in a realm other than stumbling, slurring words or passing out completely impossible...

it's probably good that i didn't embarrass myself further in the picking department as it smelled all week like a sub-.500 effort was the only possibility... but one thing i did notice was that i would have taken the pats and been right... everyone was picking against them (naturally) due to the drubbing at the hands of the chargers last sunday and all the injuries on defense and the offensive line... and granted, the defense really looked awful - the falcons' backup quarterback looked like johnny unitas... but they made just enough plays and just happened to have that guy tom brady, aka, the best player in the nfl, as well as the best clutch kicker ever, adam vinatieri, so i was right on that one after all... it's funny, but the pats, as if we should expect anything any different, are still the masters of removing distractions and ignoring adversity and winning when they have to... if they had lost sunday, which would have been two in a row, they would have had to win in denver this weekend or be 2-4 going into the bye - a lousy position to be in... so of course, they won, climbing on brady's back... the pats may not win their third super bowl in a row this year, but they are still the model sports team of the last several years in the way they conduct themselves, the way they motivate each other and the way they win every game they have to win... it's pretty damn remarkable...

the win, along with the yankees' loss last night, took a bit of the edge off of the red sox losing... there really isn't anything to say about the sox that you don't already know - they weren't the same team as last year, there wasn't enough pitching, damon, nixon and varitek were all cooked, if it weren't for all of big papi's theatrics, they probably wouldn't have even sniffed the playoffs, etc... so it was easy to get over, especially after the hangover wore off... so instead, let's just comment quickly on the yankees, the worst team money can buy... it so figured that a-rod sucked in the series, in particular last night (that double play in the ninth signified completely why big papi should win mvp instead of the fraud)... the guy is a numbers guy, period - polished and phony as his purple lip gloss... put him somewhere important where his team needs to feed off of him and forget it, you get 2-15 with no homers and no RBI for the series... and when you add to that randy johnson sucking in the very game they got him for, pizzaface matsui being invisible, bubba (or billy bob, as the captain so hilariously called him - harharharhar) crosby having to play center field in an elimination game and wiping out sheff on that collision play in the third, mussina not coming up big in a big game, AGAIN, cano being supremely talented but utterly too lakadaisical and not being able to properly bridge to rivera, the yanks were done... it will be interesting to see who's back for them next year... i'll wager that joe torre is gone, a byproduct of feeling like he can't go any further with what he has and the fact that steinbrenner will probably fire the gm... still, you have to hand it to jeter... i can't stand him but he's so damn good - the homer to cut the lead in the seventh and the leadoff hit to bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth were both so utterly predictable, anyone who's ever watched a baseball game couldn't have been surprised... and hats off to bernie williams, who hopefully will put himself out of his misery and retire... i probably have more respect for bernie than any yankee other than jeter (and from the title teams, paul o'neill)... he was always the classiest guy out there and when he was in his prime, as scary good as it gets...

ok, i'm worn out... i have to say, it will be nice to be able to relax during the week sports-wise and save all the energy for sundays for the foreseeable future... on the tv and movie front, you all should check out "my name is earl" with jason lee on tuesday nights - hilarious, although i heard jason, one of my all-time favorites, has turned to the dark side of scientology... and if you like a good, short, tension filled movie, see "good night, and good luck" about edward r. murrow, the most famous journalist of all-time, taking on senator joe mccarthy during the communist witch hunts of the 1950s... it's pretty much a docudrama but it's as taut as a thriller and it looks so awesome because it's in black and white... good shit... and with that i'm out... new column coming later in the week in which i will further humiliate myself with more football picks... until then, lates...