Obama: Frak Florida and Ohio

This just in: the Obama camp says it doesn't need Florida and Ohio to win the election in November. Should be interesting to see what voters in this states think of the Illinois senator now.



Note to Barack: probably not a good idea to further alienate any voters, particularly 19 million people in Florida and 12 million people in Ohio.



As intelligent as this guy seems to be, he needs to do a better job of monitoring what his camp puts out. He also needs to avoid the boneheaded statements like Pennsylvania voters are bitter.



This might be the one that costs him the election.

Carlos Marmol: Don't know, don't care

A week or so ago A-Rod got into hot water for yelling at blue jays infielder Howie Clark as he attempted to field a pop up. A lot of discussion centered around was it a big deal because of what Mr. Rodriguez did, i.e. breaking a cardinal rule of the Game, or was simply big news because of WHO did it?

I thought the most telling bit of news to come out of Melissa Isaacson's story in the Chicago Tribune was this tidbit from Aramis Ramirez:

"Whatever you can do to help your team, that's part of the game," Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez said. "Everyone made (last week's incident) a big deal because it's A-Rod. If Carlos Marmol did it, nobody would care."

For the record, Marmol was the scheduled starter for the Cubs on the day Ramirez was interviewed. Furthermore, Ramirez is correct, even if slighting his teammate in the process.

To make a short story long, I further recommend we adopt "Carlos Marmol" as a replacement for "Don't know, don't care".

Next time somebody starts telling you about how great that episode of "Day Break" was and what a shame that it was taken off the air and how Brett Hopper is the greatest decective of all time, just answer, "You know what Spacely McParkerson? Carlos Marmol."

Next time somebody draws you into a conversation about how the NHL lost it's way once they stopped utilizing "Prince of Wales" and "Campbell" to name its conferences, rather than saying something stupid like "NHL, SHMEM HL!", you could simply say "Carlos Marmol".

If you want to be really brave, try it at home:

"Honey, let me tell you about the day I had. First, I stopped at the pedicure people to take care of my ingrown toenail, and you would not believe how painful it was. but that's not even-"

"Um, Carlos Marmol."

"Pardon?"

"Sorry, need to mow the lawn."

In School: "Mr. McParkerson, I believe the question was name the prime numbers in order from 11 through 101 without skipping and without utilizing any textual or electronic assistance."

"Carlos Marmol, Ms. Krabappel."

The possiblities are endless!

Yankee haters rejoice

Ah, how great it is to wake up in the morning and see the Yankees tied for dead last in the AL East with the highly spectacular Devil Rays.

A columnist in Albany saw the return of Roger Dodger meant bombers now maintained the best rotation in baseball (circa 1999, maybe). Clemens is a HOF, obviously, as are Rivera and Jeter. Let's revisit Chien-Ming Wang in 15 years. I also think it's safe to say, playoff miseries aside, that Alex Rodriguez will go down as one of the greatest players ever to grace the diamond.

As for the rest, I think Posada and Damon are solid players, and Bobby Abreu has had a few good years. But overall, this is not a great team - not even in the same league as their 2003 World Series-losing Yanks.

Yankee fans often put on the blinders - firmly believing that adding the 68-year-old arm of Clemens will somehow get them back to postseason glory. They may well get there, even if they are 21-28 right now. It'll be a lot more difficult in the American League. My Cubbies are 22-27 and in second place in the NL-Central (I hear the entire division is going to be demoted to the international leage sometime after the All-Star break).

In their own division, the Blue Jays and Orioles each look much improved, and the Devil Rays can throw Kasmir at you every fifth day. Of course George still has the purse and he's willing to buy whatever it takes to get this team to the postseason. But after seeing Rivera fail repeatedly in '07, you can't be happy right now if you cheer for the Spankees.

The deal with the Blue Lion

Note to Justin Marks:

Dude, congrats on getting the deal to write Voltron. I have to admit, I have no idea what those other movies are that you wrote, but I hear Saved! was pretty sweet, and the uniforms sure like might nice.

So here's the deal. You can probably get some 18-30s out on opening weekend to see the live-action Voltron when it hits theatres next year (or whenever) - but the overall booty will depend in large part on how you guys deal with the sacred cartoon. It's my generation (X-Yers) that grew up with the lions, and you please us, you'll hit $200 million easy.

A few suggestions:

Don't bone Sven out of the ride in the first movie. The Bruce Lee-esque second-in-command BMF was the coolest guy on the show for the first six episodes. No doubt Voltron will be the big payoff at the end, so stay true to the original story and let the man have his day in the first film.

If you want to have him all messed up in the second movie, by all means, go right ahead. It makes perfect sense that her story would be the centerpiece of the second film, blah blah blah.

I stopped watching, as did the bulk of my friends, after she got in the lion anyway. Not sure if you've bothered watching any of the cartoon, but Sven shows back up again later in the series to actually move the story along. He gets Lotor, and later gets back in the Blue Lion. You watch that episode and one could argue he must go back to work as a full member of the Voltron force.

Not for nothing, but the rest of the crew look like a bunch of tools. Yes, his accent left a bit to be desired, but he looked sweet, and that's all you care about when your nine. Why do you think Snake Eyes ended up as the king of GI Joe in the comics or at the stores when the cartoon always focused on Duke or the next toy of the week?

I've never understood the pro-Allura crowd. Yeah, she was hot, but even the original Japanese series realized they made a mistake killing off Shirogane Takashi- that's why they brought his brother back later in the series- and why the folks at WEP just had Sven taken to some hospital planet. Didn't seem like every episode Allura is the one screwing things up for the rest of the crew? Blue Lion goes from having the best pilot to the worst overnight.

Sven rocked. Give him his due and send him off the hospital planet-XK319 in Voltron 2:Electric Boogaloo.

If you need any proof, just watch how Transformers is going to tank at the box office in 2007. They messed with Megatron. Big mistake. So he's a big gun? Big whoop-dee-doo! He's the greatest villain of the '80s, for fraksake!

Speaking of which-

All time villains?

1. Megatron (the big gun could level a city!)

2. Darth Vader (let's just try to forget anything that happened after 1983)

3. Cobra Commander- screamed like a little girl

4. The Joker - Personally I was glad to see Jason Todd go. The kid was a weinie.

5. Hannibal Lecter - He did eat Ray Liota's brain, after all.

And pilots of the Blue Lion

1. Sven

2. Yeah, pretty much just Sven.

Schumer ready to rumble, Gonzales!

Note to AG Alberto,

The Good Senior Senator from New York is taking the gloves off and ready to rumble Street Fighter style.

Seems Mr. Schumer has the ok to proceed with a no-confidence vote against the attorney general. Shocking that a democrat-controlled Senate would approve of such a thing! Is it just me or is this the biggest waste of time in the known universe?

Janet Reno fires 93 U.S. attorneys as her first course of action and nobody cared. Gonzales dumps eight and it's the end of the world as we know it (unless we proceed with a NON-BINDING vote immediately! That'll show 'em!)

Does anybody really care about this? At least Don Jorge Bush has stuck by his man. Still to early to tell if the Latino community will remember in 529 days.

¡Bienvenidos a Megatron and Friends!

Welcome amigos- Keynesian scholars, trekkies, neocons, republocrats, democrins, tree and hip hugglers, banana boat crews, lovers of all things Decepticon.

I really have no concept of how wide or far or small or narrow a blog actually travels but I've seen enough refuse I thought, WTF? (I'm not big on acronyms but I heard that one on radio commercial two days ago and I've been fascinated how it cleared the FCC ever since...)

I think the Blog name here speaks for itself, but to make a short story long (as I'm fond of saying) - what better title for a guy who gew up in the 80s and never quite finished? Of cours there's a trait I share with my fellow 80s alums- we all still play video games (I had a Intellivision) watch the holy trilogy at least twice a year (and try to pretend Eps I,II and III never really happened) and rock on with endless conversations about who really was the blue lion pilot - Sven or that hot blonde in the pink space suit?

Anyway, I also had the big guy (probably still do somewhere) as a matchbox toy in like 1984. I remember because there was one other kid in the fourth grade who owned Optimus Prime. Funny how he thought Megatron was cooler where I couldn't wait to see the truck transform into Autobot base mode.

But I digress (which I will do frequently, along with parentheses).

I think about sports, politics, TV, movies, workplace nonsense and all sorts of other nonsenses. I'll try to keep it clean (for the most part).