Team Edward or Team Jacob? I'm with Team "I don't give a fuck!"

Tonight all across the country, the multiplex will be overun with tweens, high school girls, and mothers who dig vampires and werewolves who are more Calvin Kline-type models than they are, you know - vampires and werewolves. That's right, the next chapter in the Twilight series, New Moon, is set to make some serious box office gold this weekend and nothing I, or any of the critics who say the film flat out tanks, will matter. Much like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, this movie is critic-proof. For two hours and ten minutes, young girls will be staring at studly eye candy (with extra sappy teenage romance/angst and a splash of vampire and werewolf action thrown in).

Am I annoyed about hearing/reading about the relentless parade of movie news and what not? You bet. Do I really give a rat's ass about the rumors of lead actors Kirsten Stewart and teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson dating? Hardly. Am I going to be happy when this franchise joins with Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and High School Musical in the trash bin of flash-in-the-pan pop culture hits of the moment? Hell, I probably won't even remember The Twilight Saga, ten years from now (I hope). To all the Twilight-haters out there (and yes, I am a proud member of that group): Let the sparkling vampires have their moment, and allow all the pubescent tweeners mind-frig themselves silly to Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Later on in life, they'll come to the same conclusion that the rest of us knew right off the bat: 'God, that franchise sucked!'

Also, when teen queen Miley Cyrus thinks the Twilight franchise sucks, you know it's only a matter of time before all the tweeners (i.e. the most fickle demographic on Gods green earth) wake up and get wise to the con job.

Mr. "A Noun, a verb, and 9/11" is running for the Senate seat in New York

The story:

Following earlier reports that former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani had decided not to enter the 2010 governor's race comes word that he has decided to run for Senate instead.

While Giuliani's spokeswoman is denying that he has made up his mind about which race, if any, to enter, sources tell the New York Daily News that Giuliani has been telling people he "plans to run against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010 to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton's term."

Taking a page out of the Karl Rove playbook, "Do you really want a cross-dressing freak repersenting the Empire State? We need manly men, not sissy men who dress in drag and look like a bad extra in the '96 comedy The Birdcage."

Unbelievable

A majority of Republican voters beleive that the group ACORN stole the presidential election for Barack Obama. I'm not making this up.

PPP's newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately. Clearly the ACORN card really is an effective one to play with the voters who will decide whether Hoffman gets to be the Republican nominee in a possible repeat bid in 2010.

Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.

Overall 62% of Americans think Obama legitimately won the election to only 26% who think ACORN stole it for him, as few Democrats or independents buy into that line of thinking.

Alright righties, let me make this quite clear:

Your candidate fucking lost. Ours won. It was an electoral blowout (over 300 for Obama/Biden, 175 for McCain/Palin), and the Dem ticket won 52 percent of the vote, compared to the GOP ticket of 46 percent. The race is long over. Deal with it.

I Got New Glasses Tonight

Anybody who wears Glasses has gone through what I am about to describe but it makes it no less "disheartening" About the time I was 27 or so I knew my eyes were failing and soon I would be in need of glasses. The final straw came shortly after my 28th birthday when I could no longer make out the board at Sizzlers. So in 2002 I got glasses. Then I got a new pair and my eyes had gotten MUCH worse. Then I got a new pair again and again my eyes had gotten worse. At this point with out my glasses I can read an little else. I mean if it's more than a few feet away it's a blur. I thought my eyes had stabilized and my new glasses this time wouldn't be much different than the last pair...Then I went in for the test. The Dr. Says this is your old prescription and I looked and he said this is your new one... I looked and said to myself Oh fuck! At what point will I be officially blind? it's soon I imagine.

BTW the Contessa who is the opposite of me and needs Glasses to read and little else says..."your glasses are getting thicker aren't they?" That made me feel better.

Week 9 in the NFL: Manning v. Brady

Screw all the games playing today, because there's really only one that matters: undefeated Indy goes up against New England in another chapter between two of football's elite teams. Who will come out on top?

Feel free to discuss any games and the Monday night debacle that will commence in Cleveland against the Ravens.

Early thoughts as of 10:51

I'm flipping back and forth between NO/STL and DEN/WSH and here are a few thoughts:

* Kyle Orton CAN throw the ball down the field. Who knew?

* Redskins had me fooled. After that first possession drive that tied the game up, I thought the Skins just might give the Donkeys a game. One TD and two overthrow passes from Jason Campbell later, its 14-7 Denver. Imagine my surprise.

* Reggie Bush rushes for the Saints first touchdown. Glad to know that Mr. Kardashian is still of some use.

* Going back to the Fox NFL Pregame show, I just had a revelation: Frank Callendo just isn't all that funny. That Dr. Phil bit? Frank - what were you thinking??

Half-time thoughts:

* Our Play of the Day: 4th and 20. Redskins Punter Hunter Smith just made his case to be the new QB for Washington. Smith comes out to attempt a 53 yard field goal, then at the last second to line up in punt formation, only to then throw a 53-yard strike to tie the game at 14-14. Nice one, Zorn.

* Steelers lead the Bengals 9-6, but Troy Polamalu suffers another injury - this time to his leg.

* Speaking of injuries, Kyle Orton came off limping off that 3rd and goal play. Hate the Donkeys, but I hope that's not a serious injury to this guy. Wouldn't wish that on any good QB.

* Chargers safety Eric Weddle gets fined $7,500 for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Sunday against the Giants. I call bullshit. That was old-fashioned defense, plain and simple.

Edit From The Count: Orton Injured Broncos Lose. I am sure that bothers you Jonathan.

Late Edit: Two rushing TD for Tomlinson. 21-6 Chargers. Welcome back, LT.

Late edit: Bill Belichick ... what the fuck were you thinking, going for it on 4th and 2!?

Late Edit From The Count: what Jonathan said.


Well look who was actually calling the plays...

Really, Mark?

Despite my feelings towards Sarah Palin, I will admit one thing: for a 44 year-old mother, former Governor of Alaska, and vice presidential candidate for the McCain campaign, she is one attractive woman for her age. Mark Noonan, therefore, must brag and boast on how Mrs. Palin is fare more attractive than anyone us liberals have.

She’s also much, much better looking than any liberal chick you’ve got…so, there.

I didn't know this was a contest, but i'll play along. I'll see your Sarah Palin, and raise you these two.

Game. Set. Match.

Weekend Football And Open Thread

VS

31 17


Sometimes you just have one of those days you just want to bottle up and then release it when you have one of those days when nothing goes right. Kansas played the best game they have played in 5 weeks and held a 17-16 lead with less than 8 minutes to go. When Kansas scored to go ahead given Nebraska's offense of recent vintage you couldn't help but think oh fuck we are screwed. But then Kansas helped out with a pooch kick that Niles Paul returned 44 yards to the KU 30, A face mask on a play that would have left Nebraska with 4th and 16 gave them a first down on the 20. The Next play Roy Helu goes for 20 and a TD Nebraska makes the 2 point conversion and All of the sudden the day got so much brighter. and then came the truly amazing site. Nebraska which had it's most sub-par defensive game since September got a 3 and out and then the offense remember offense? took the ball and kept it until there was but 35 seconds on the clock and a 14 point lead on the score board.

The 31-17 win over Kansas was enough to make the day fairly complete as it was but then Nebraska's basketball team won it's opener in easy fashion against USC-Upstate, yeah I haven't heard of them either, and to top it all off...Creighton lost their opener. Man talk about a day.

Offense B. Could go A even here. 410 yards. 31 points. In the past neither of those numbers would maybe draw such a high grade but for this team that is Huge out put. And how sweet was it to see Nebraska take the ball and end a game with old school power football? Zac Lee played what I think was his best game of the year considering the opponent he was in control all game. 12-20 196 yards and 53 yards Rushing may not be all world but he showed the leadership today this team needs. he did have one screw up when he fumbled in the ball in the endzone but Roy Helu fell on that for a touchdown on Nebraska's opening possession. And speaking of Roy Helu how huge is having him back healthy? over 150 yards 3 Touchdowns and he kept the chains moving to put the game away. Oh and Niles Paul another popular whipping boy for the fans, often justified, had the best game of his life. 4 huge catches and a huge kickoff return. Maybe not vintage stuff by the O but after the last several weeks it was a huge improvement. They still need to find away to score touchdowns and not kick field goals.

Defense B-. You know things have improved dramatically for Nebraska's defense in less than 2 years when the other team scores just 17 points and it felt like the defense had a poor game. It was one of their poorest games of the season but you have to credit Kansas for much of that. Honestly when Nebraska went up 10-0 I thought it was pretty much over. Then Kansas and Todd Reesing got going. Reesing killed Nebraska with QB's draws all game and burned Nebraska on the blitz. At halftime the score was 10-10 but Kansas was in control. They came out of the locker-room on the same roll and went right down the field until on of the plays of the game occurred. Reesing hit Kerry Meier who took the ball down to the 3 where it was stripped by Dijuan Gomes and recovered by Matt O'Hanlon. Nebraska took the ball from their 3 and moved it into field goal range making the score 13-10 Nebraska when it could have easily been 17-10 Kansas. The Gomes strip and the 3 and out after NU went up 24-17 were huge but give Kansas credit for comiong up with a game plan that kept Nebraska's defensive line frustrated and the entire defense off balance all game.

Special Teams A. HUge with a capital HU. Alex Henery had some shaky punts early and barely made a short field goal that put NU up 10-0 but after that the special teams were outstanding. Henery regained his punting stroke and made 2 more field goals, Tim Marlowe started the game with a 40 yard kick return and then there was Pauls kick return after KU took a 1 point lead. Nebraska's kick coverage has been outstanding all year and was again today.

Overall A-. Nothing comes easy for this bunch. Today the offense woke from it's slumber and the defense had it's shakiest showing since Florida Atlantic. Both statements being relative to this season. But give Kansas credit. This was Senior day the last day for their Seniors to play at home and the last chance to right a season which was once so promising 5 straight losses ago. This was not the KU bunch of the last several weeks. This KU team played hard and it played well and any team that does that with the talent KU has will be a tough out for Nebraska. But give all the credit to Nebraska. down 17-16 with less than 8 minutes to go Nebraska didn't fold and didn't quit. Instead they made the plays to put the ball in the endzone not once but twice and now a team that was left for dead after a bad loss to Texas Tech and unbelievably bad loss to Iowa State, both at home, playing for the Big XII North title next week. It's a home game against a team they will be favored to beat but if we learned anything this year it's that this team isn't good enough to over look anybody.

Around the BIG XII.

Missouri 38 Kansas State 12. In a year of freaky outcomes Missouri and Colorado are the two teams who's play really seems to depend on whether or not they took their Tegratol before the game. I didn't see this coming at all. Kansas State had played so well even in a loss to Oklahoma and playing in their last home game against a Missouri team that lost to freakin Baylor...AT HOME! last week I really thought they would handle Missouri. But good news for Kansas State win next week at Nebraska they are Big XII North Champions. Lose next week they are home for the holidays.

Iowa State 17 Colorado 10. Iowa State be bowl eligible. Colorado be officially out of the big XII north race and out of bowl eligibility and just about out of everything other than possibly a serious case of fuck it. The CU fan base which sucks as is really wants Dan Hawkins gone. And they want him gone yesterday. Paul Rhoads might very well be Big XII coach of the year depending on what K-State does next week.

Texas 47 Baylor 14. Give Mack Brown credit he didn't run up the score. it was 40-0 at halftime and I imagine it could have been 80-0 at the end if he so chose. This was exactly about what one thought it would be if not a little more impressive from Texas than expected. This ain't your Daddy's Baylor. Ask Missouri.

Oklahoma 65 Texas A&M 10. Did I mention the Mike Sherman experiment isn't working? He is Bill Callahan south. I guess we must have pissed Oklahoma off really good last week. On the down side the 9000 Oklahoma fans who make youtube videos will be really thrilled this week after slobbering contemplating committing mass suicide last week.

Oklahoma State 24 Texas Tech 17. The shocker here was this game was low scoring. if we had to hurt Stephen Shefield why couldn't we have done it Before he lead his team to a 3 touchdown victory against us? As bad as our offense was that game it's a good bet Taylor Potts is every bit as effective in that game but it's obvious the Stephen Shefield post Nebraska game is not the same QB he was pre and during the Nebraska game. Hey if Oklahoma State beats Colorado
(which they will) and Oklahoma (which they could) and Texas A&M beats Texas (no way in hell) Oklahoma State is Big XII South champions

Leo gets pissed that we haven't remembered all the good that Saint Reagan had done for us

I will never understand the conservatives obsession with Ronald Reagan. His "trickle-down theory" is the reason why we're in the tank right now, and his willingness to fund the mujaheddin in Afghanistan is the reason why Al-Qaeda exists in the Middle East. But don't tell any of that to Leo Pusateri, who's now pissed that during the week, when we celebrated the day the Berlin Wall fell, we didn't fall on bended knee and worship at the feet of Saint Reagan.

Someone please explain all the praise to a man who made greedy, selfish businessmen feel good about being greedy, selfish businessmen (and Leo is more than welcome to state his case to me), because I don't get it...I don't get it at all.

Thunder Will Always Have This

Today he was sentenced to life plus 90.

I Hope The Door Doesn't Hit Him Where The Good Lord Split Him.

How quick until he ends up at Fox?