The Frinklin and Fred Show

Oscar Follow-Up

I don't have much to offer about the Oscars, other than to mention I still have no interest whatsoever in seeing Million Dollar Baby, but I feel the need to comment on the utter awfulness of the nominees for Best Song. I like the Counting Crows, but "Accidentally in Love" is a trifle at best. “Vois Sur Ton Chemin” and “Al Otro Lado Del Río” were just dull, and the song from Polar Express was… well, a Glen Ballard song from Polar Express. Andrew Lloyd Webber's, “Learn to be Lonely” is worse than most of his other crap

That these were nominated over Mick Jagger’s best song since “Start Me Up” is hard to fathom.

As for the rest: Chris Rock was funny, but seemed a little jittery; the Magic Johnson bit was mean-spirited but should have been more so; whomever thought up Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand appearing as their Focker personalities should be fired and possible imprisoned.

In other news, the Earth continues to rotate around the sun

Star-crossed Mariner outfielder Chris Snelling is scheduled for knee surgery. At this point it's listed as a slightly torn meniscus, but it is the same knee he tore the ACL off a couple years ago.

Snelling does seem to be shooting for Pete Reiser-dom, doesn't he?

Oscar Predictions

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t seen all of the movies on this list, but I am pretentious enough to form opinions on movies I’ve never even seen.

Best Actress
Annette Bening in "Being Julia"
Catalina Sandino Moreno in "Maria Full of Grace"
Imelda Staunton in "Vera Drake"
Hilary Swank "Million Dollar Baby"
Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

The Pick - Hilary Swank in “Million Dollar Baby”

Best Actor
Don Cheadle in "Hotel Rwanda"
Johnny Depp in "Finding Neverland"
Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Aviator"
Clint Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby"
Jamie Foxx in "Ray"

The Pick - Jamie Foxx in “Ray”

Best Picture
"The Aviator"
"Finding Neverland"
"Million Dollar Baby"
"Ray"
"Sideways"

The Pick - “The Aviator”
What should have won but wasn’t nominated for some inexplicable reason - “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

Best Director
“The Aviator" Martin Scorsese
"Million Dollar Baby" Clint Eastwood
"Ray" Taylor Hackford
"Sideways" Alexander Payne
"Vera Drake" Mike Leigh

The Pick - “The Aviator” Martin Scorsese

Spoil the Frinklin Day

For some reason, my lovely wife decided it was Spoil the Frinklin Day, as she picked me up a nifty new watch and we upgraded my cell phone (it went to a nice phone to this rather kick-ass one).

Despite my cajoling, I couldn't go all the way and add the PC version of TSL or MVP Baseball 2005, but I probably shouldn't bitch.

I can't help but get my geeky heart excited...

Yeah, I hate the prequels, and George Lucas pisses me off in general, but I can't wait to see Revenge of the Sith.

And if you really can't wait, check this out. An enterprising fan has compiled just about every picture released or leaked about the movie and put together a timeline. Is he correct? Who knows... it seems to make sense.

And below is what I think is the most arresting image.

Thanks to The Beat.

Yes, that would be Count Dooku with both his freakin' hands cut off!

Is Huddy channeling Dr. Gonzo?

You know, Tim Hudson... all you really need is a floppy hat and about a dozen acid tablets.

From the “Dead Horse” category

I’m going to talk about The Sith Lords one last time, so bear with me. When I, and just about everyone else played the game, the feeling was that the ending didn’t work, like it was incomplete.

That turns out to be correct. It seemed incomplete because it was. Buried on the PC Version are programmer notes, audio clips and plot summaries that show Obsidian started out as ambitious -more so really- as Bioware was for the original. LucasArts put a stop to that by forcing OE to rush the game out for a Christmas release. The information that has been ripped out by enterprising gamers is pretty impressive.

-The end mess with the Remote and GOTO? HK was supposed to make the rescue, but since the HK factory was cut, that was too.
-Wondering what happened to all of the companions during the end? Well, the original ending had all of them included. Especially interesting is an ending where Atton was captured by Sion and turned to the dark side. Eventually he murders the Disciple.
-More exposition on Mira, who was included in the final scenes for no apparent reason.
-Visas sacrificing herself to save the Exile

All of this, and a little more, can be found here. It isn't totally coherent, but you can muddle through.

Fred Durst of all people....

Credit where credit is due: I saw this first over at Richard's place.

The T-Mobile Terrorist who spilled Paris Hilton's Sidekick onto the Net has struck again. This time poser extraordinaire Fred Durst was hacked, and his T-Mobile archives included a homemade porn tape featuring Fred and some anonymous girl.

Fred Durst is so far down the list of sex tapes I would like to see (or even know exist), light isn't even visible.

What is it?

What is it that compels me to buy a Pepsi for $1.00, one that I don’t need, and really don’t even want, in hopes that I might win a free iTunes download. A download that costs $.99.

Is there some logic here that I can’t find?

One Postscript

A hint for all those young men out there: If you take your wife or girlfriend to a moderately famous sex shop, and she buys herself a t-shirt with the store's logo on it, make damned sure she never wears it around your parents. If you don't, something as horrible as this could happen to you.

I have no earthly idea how to react to this

If you read my lovely wife’s blog, you might have seen this. My parents, divorced since I was a teenager, are getting remarried. In retrospect, this isn’t that big a surprise. In fact Ensie predicted they would get back together eventually. We were both pretty much floored by the marriage thing though.

Fun week huh? I start a new job, then head on up to Orange County in this once-a-decade rainstorm that Southern California is suffering through to help my mother move. Remember, she decided to head back home to Seattle and move in with my father as roommates. Not quite…

We had been there just a few minutes, watching the uncommunicative Turks move my mother’s furniture in the rain, when my mother wanted to show Ensie and I her Valentine’s day present. It was a ring….

Waitaminnnit. A ring? My wife and I shared a look. After Dad was done on his cell phone, he and Mom leveled with us. They’re getting remarried, with a date tentatively set for August 22. That would be the 35th anniversary of their first time around. They divorced in 1987.

Nineteen

Eighty

Seven

Eighteen years later, with several more divorces and broken engagements between them, they will try this again. It’s been about 12 years since I finally accepted the divorce, and put it out of my head that they could ever get back together again.

Guess they showed me huh?

Does this make sense to you?

I decided to start taking the stairs at work. Not all the way up to the 11th floor thank you, but at least from my office on the 11th to the lunchroom on the 14th. I figure three flights a couple times a day might do me some good. After finally finding the damned stairs today, I did it. This afternoon I went up the stairs to the 14th floor, did what I had to do and headed back down.

Only, the door to the 11th floor was locked. As was the 9th, 10th, 12th and 13th. In fact, of the 5 floors the Corporate Behemoth handle, only the 14th is even accessible from the stairs. Now, I certainly hope this isn’t the case for the lower floors, as they would be the only way out in a emergency. I might have to check tomorrow.

Fear and Loathing

Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide this weekend. Its difficult to be stunned by this news, as anyone who’s read his books knows, Doctor Gonzo seemed to give up on the idea of dying quietly in his bed years ago. Hunter Thompson virtually defined the term demented genius. His late-60’s to early-70’s string of Hells Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972 are unmatched in my eyes as a look at the counterculture. Of course, counterculture icons die hard, and Thompson was no exception. His work over the last couple decades was a pale imitation of his greatest works, but life was always more interesting the way Hunter Thompson looked at it.

My long week ends

You would think, after my stressful week of closing down one job and starting another, that I would reward myself with a stress-free weekend.

You'd be wrong.

Tomorrow morning I'll be waking up early. Not quite as early as I would on a weekday, but certainly earlier than I would like on a Saturday. The wife and I will be heading up to Orange County to help my mother move. It shouldn't be too difficult a move, since due to bizarro-world economics it costs less to hire movers and a real moving van than it does to rent a U-Haul. We'll just be helping with clean-up and since Mom is moving back up to Seattle it might be a while until we see her again. Dad's down too, to help with the move and drive up.

Oh yeah, my parents, divorced for 18 years now, are going to be roommates. I'm not sure what to think of that yet.

This is more like it

The NHL is dead…

I wanted to write something yesterday about the cancellation of the NHL season, but I just couldn’t. This lemming-like march just completed is too damned depressing. Can anyone read this as anything other than Gary Bettman and the owners wanting to break the union, start up with replacement players in 2006 and possibly closing some franchises? The union caved near the end of negotiation and accepted the idea of a salary cap, something they had repeatedly said they would not do. They quibbled a bit with the actual numbers though, and it came down to the NHL offering approximately $43 million in salary cap money versus the union asking for $49 million.

Yep, Bettman is trying to tell people that $6 million per team is what killed this season and put the NHL on life support. Actually, the league has been slowly dying for years now, an over-extended, messed-up mixture of undercapitalized Canadian teams, poorly thought-out Sun Belt expansion franchises and a few wealthy powers like Detroit, New York and Colorado. That the last Stanley Cup featured one of those misbegotten southern teams beating a tiny Canadian team just means you can’t buy smarts.

So, where does it go from here? Will this scale the NHL back down to size? It can’t be any sort of fourth major league. It’s TV ratings have been getting steadily worse, and this won’t help things any. The fact the ESPN gets better ratings from poker than it did its NHL games should be -and is- scary as hell for any hockey fan. With any luck, the money craze will die down, a couple unnecessary southern teams (Nashville and Atlanta, I’m looking at you) will be folded, and the NHL can reclaim its birthright as the Cult Sport.

My Nerdy Valentine

Yes, this was my Valentine's Day gift to my lovely wife. It wasn't my choice either, I was informed that it would be the best choice. It is pretty cool too.

I do notice that Ensie didn't tell the story about tonight. About how the damned thing didn't work when we first hooked it up, and we actually called a tech-support line . I know, how geeky can we be when we do that? Anyway, they couldn't figure it out, and suggested we return it. That wouldn't do, we don't want that.

So my lovely wife shook it. Yep, actually picked it up and gave it a good shake. It's worked ever since.

Slow Blog, Busy Life

Well, not really.

It just seems busy, as I've officially left the sunken ship and moved cross-town to the Corporate Behemoth Attempting to Rule the World, and it is difficult to be actually working again. I had gotten entirely too used to showing up for a couple hours and going home. No more of that for me though. The biggest change so far is the feel of this company. It’s the first time I’ve worked in a high-rise building, we have hundreds of employees just in this office, and we take up 5 full floors. It’s really easy to get lost.

The Four Most Beautiful Words in the English Language

Pitchers and Catchers report. Most teams open up tomorrow, a few opened today. Spring games start in 2 weeks, and we're 6 weeks from the real thing.

Beautiful...

Little more on a possible KotOR 3

Found at the GameFaqs boards, this quote from this month's Game Informer

"NOTES ON KOTOR III:

Obsidian did pretty well taking over for BioWare in KOTOTRII: The Sith Lords, and it's got more up it's sleeve for the third installment. A source tells us that the game is going to reveal more about the HK series of droids, including where they are from and who makes them. Also planned is an exploration of the Outer Rim territories following in Revan's footsteps."

The Onion on the Super Bowl

"The anxiety made me throw to [wide receiver Todd] Pinkston a half-second before he turned and looked back for the ball—I mean, looked for the can of Campbell's new Chunky Chili."

The New Seahawk GM/VP?

According to this morning's Seattle Times, the 'Hawks have asked for and received permission from the New England Patriots to interview Scott Pioli for their vacant VP position. Pioli, who won the NFL Executive of the Year in 2003, would be a brilliant hire for the Seahawks.

It probably won't happen, but we can dream, can't we?

The Original BSG

I was home today, as the sinking ship has sunk, and we don't even bother coming in anymore. I watched several episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi channel.

Was it always this awful, and my 9-year old self just didn't get it? I mean, man... it was so much worse than I remember. Lorne Greene visibly phoning it in, ridiculous over-the-top sneering villains, sets that looked stolen from Plan 9, and topped off by robot dogs.

Robot dogs!

Who Watches...?

That would be "Who Watches the Watchmen?" for those non-geeks. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons massive superhero opus, after many starts and stops has finally moved into the actual-movie state. How do we know this? It has its own official website. You won't find them here, but attached are screenwriter David Hayter, who has penned the scripts for both X-Men movies, as well as the planned Iron Man and Black Widow. The director is Paul Greengrass, who helmed The Bourne Supremacy. Nothing cast as yet, though Jude Law has been rumored as the choice for Ozymandias.

Come to think of it, I would have difficulty with anyone other than Law in the part.

Done right, this movie could rival Lord of the Rings and the original Matrix . Done wrong, and we're looking at worse than League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Please don't screw it up.

It can’t be 5 years already?

Art Thiel had a nice piece in this morning’s PI regarding the 5-year anniversary of the Griffey Trade. This makes me feel old, since I distinctly remembering this was only a couple years ago. Oh well, time flies when you’re losing Hall of Famers. Like every Mariner fan from the 90’s, Junior will always be an M somewhere in my head, and I can remember the early days, when he was the Only Reason to see a game. I won’t say Junior was my idol, because he seemed more than that. You could relate to Edgar, a gritty guy who had to work twice as hard as anyone else. You could relate to Dan Wilson or Jay Buhner, everyman-types who just happened to play baseball. Ken Griffey was different. It seemed so easy to him, so natural. He’s only a few years older than I, and my little league days were over when he came up, but I still tried to imitate his easy, loping swing when I headed to a batting cage. It was hopeless of course, chunky unathletic kids can’t do such things.

So, it’s been five years, admittedly exciting ones, since he left. And I can remember, whenever he went to get a new contract, and somebody would talk about him leaving, he would always mention that his father told him that no team would treat his as well as his first team. That struck me when he demanded a trade, and I wondered if he remembered it as well. The Reds though, they have treated him well. Its just everything else that hasn’t. Junior’s post-M career has been unbelievably star-crossed. It isn’t a question if he’ll be the player he was before. No, the question is if he’ll ever be a player again. He’s only played in 462 games in the four seasons since the trade. He’s been wracked with injuries, and at 35, the slope is going down.

I’d still want him back though. At this point, its totally impossible for me to be objective about Ken Griffey, Jr. I know his contract is awful at this point. I know he’d probably have to play left in Safeco. I know he might not fit in the clubhouse. But I don’t care. If the opportunity arose, I would want the M’s to bring him back.

Which means its good I ain’t Bill Bavasi.

Sith Lords on PC

Today is the official release date for Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords on PC and international Xbox. To those who plan on tackling it, I have a couple broad hints.

1-Start off as a Jedi Sentinel. Unless you know you’re going all-out on Force powers and want to be a Consular. The Guardian in this game get screwed a bit. It has the same Base Attack Bonus as the other classes, and the Guardian-only Force Jump feat is useless (you don’t have a lightsaber) for about the first quarter of the game. Guardians also only get 1 more feat than the Sentinel, and Sentinels get a lot more skills.

2-Skill is a lot more important in this game than the first one. Skill and attribute points (Intelligence, Awareness, and Wisdom especially) will open up additional conversation options. Some of these are very important. More important: The PC’s Repair skill is always used in breaking down items into components. If you use a different character, their repair number will be used in creating items, but not breaking them down.

3-Talk to Kriea as often as possible. A lot of gamers don’t like her, but get over it. She gives you a lot of plot points, and will trigger both your Prestige class and the beginning of the end of the game.

4-Go ahead and be willing to get dark points if you’re light side and vice versa. Don’t overdue it, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make up for it later.

If you need anything more, check out my thoughts of the game here, and sorta-FAQ here. I’ll answer any question you have about the game.

And yes, I'll probably-okay, I will- buy the game on PC. Why? Addiction maybe?

I could get used to this redux

Again, I could get used to this office-closing stuff. I worked exactly one full day last week. This week is shaping up even better. I had Friday and Monday off, worked (if you can call it that) 2 hours today, and might not work another two hours the entire rest of the week.

Remind me of this when I have to start my new job next week, and help my mother move. Perfect way to end a stressful week.

Sunday's Best Alternative Program

All networks, cable or broadcast, that don’t have the Super Bowl still have to program something on America’s Secular Holiday. Bravo did a Queer Eye For the Straight Guy marathon, ESPN went with figure skating, but Animal Planet did it the best.

The Puppy Bowl.

A simple concept: a large, football field-shaped pen, 17 rambunctious puppies, and a few toys. Three hours of strangely hypnotic television. You would be surprised how much fun it is just to sit and watch puppies play. It was a very nice diversion after the avalanche that the Super Bowl has become.

The best part is the Puppy Bowl is to raise awareness of the need for puppy adoptions. All of the puppies come from shelters, and the show website links to places where you can adopt your own. If you want a dog, please adopt one that needs a home.

My wife and I are the owners of two very cute and very odd shelter puppies, and I can't imagine anything better.

Frinklin Football Follow Up

I know, enough with the alliteration.

The Patriots are the NFL’s newest dynasty with their third Super Bowl win in the last four years. The game was exciting, if not as well-played as you might expect from these two teams. Donovan McNabb ended with great stats, but seemed to make just as many big plays for the Patriots as he did the Eagles. Philly took this game down to the wire, but stumbled at the end. Richard asks if anyone has ever seen a team play with less urgency during a two-minute drill. The answer is no, certainly not a team in this kind of situation. The Eagles never seemed to handle the clock at all.

Lastly, I think people have to be impressed with Terrell Owens. Whether you like him-I certainly don’t-TO was one of the few Eagles who played with real intensity the last few minutes. Finishing with over 100 yards receiving was really quite impressive for a one-legged man.

Now, we just need to get March Madness done with, and its on to the important stuff: Baseball. Pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks.

Update 2.7.05 Peter King nailed it in his column for SI.com today I mean, it's like Reid didn't trust McNabb to run the hurry-up offense. That certainly seems to be the case.

Frinklin Football Forecast: Super Bowl 39

Offense

Philadelphia
Without Terrell Owens, the Eagles are down to two bona fide playmakers: QB Donavan McNabb and RB Bryan Westbrook. McNabb is an exciting player capable of hurting the opposition with both his arm and feet, but he’s shown an unfortunate tendency to make mistakes against quality opponents. Westbrook, who will line up everywhere on offense is a cat-quick scatback. It will up to the Patriots’ active and smart linebackers to control him. I’m sure Owens will see the field, but expect New England’s physical secondary to beat him up whenever he’s on. Owens can’t be expected to be in football shape.

New England
The Pats can hurt a team in many different ways. In a switch from their previous Super Bowl teams, this team can eat up yards and clock behind Corey Dillon. Dillon, a great player who was on some awful teams, has had an great year and seems to be intensely focused. The QB is Tom Brady of course, and he has an arsenal of lesser-known but talented receivers led by Dion Branch and speedster David Givens. Brady is smart, always plays under control and very seldom makes a mistake.

Edge: New England

Defense

Philadelphia
The Eagles are fast, tough and blitz like lunatics. Up front Corey Simon and Jevon Kearse are pass rushing oriented, and leave the run to massive DT Darwin Walker and MLB Jeremiah Trotter. Three-quarters of the Eagles secondary are heading to the Pro Bowl, and CB Sheldon Brown, who isn’t headed to Hawaii, may be the best of the bunch. Both safeties, Michael Lewis and Brian Dawkins, are headhunters who might have problems with New England’s multiple wideout looks.

New England
It really is stunning that the Patriots are here, considering their two best defenders, DE Richard Seymour and CB Ty Law have missed much of the season. Seymour will play on Sunday, but Law will not. The Pats secondary seems to be in shambles, starting rookie Randall Gay and second-year man Asante Samuel. New England’s nickleback will again be receiver Troy Brown. The linebackers are among the best in football, led by Tedy Bruschi.

Edge: Even

Coaching
While everyone has concluded that Bill Belichik is one of, if the not the best coach of all time, Eagle coach Andy Reid has been ignored. That’s an unfair slight to Reid, who brought the Eagles up from lousy to a team with four consecutive NFC title appearances. Belichick will lose his brilliant coordinators after Sunday, as Charlie Weis will head to Notre Dame and Romeo Crennel will take over the Cleveland Browns. The Eagles coordinators are just as good, and bizarrely underrated. On offense, Brad Childress will have to find a way to attack the Patriots secondary, and Jim Johnson will have to solve the Pats offense.

Edge: New England, but not by much

Prediction: New England 24, Philadelphia 14

I would move to Texas just to vote for him

Author/musician/animal rescuer/all-around oddball Thomas "Kinky" Friedman has announced plans to run as an Independent for the Texas governorship. Friedman, who is infamous for novelty hit songs like They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore and a string of excellent novels featuring the adventures of a New York City detective named... umm... Kinky Freidman, will need just over 45,000 signatures to qualify for the 2006 election. He plans on running a "anti-wussification" campaign.

Can we move to Texas honey?

From the "Its never too early category"

During my morning commute, I saw something that may very well be very popular in the coming years. On the back of a green Oldmobile, festooned with various peace-oriented bumper stickers was... wait for it.

A Hilary Clinton 2008 sticker.

You can buy them here.

Make up your mind, schedule types!

According to the online version of the M's 2005 schedule, the Angels-that-shall-go-nameless are listed as "ANA". According to David at Sports and B's, they are listed as "LAA" on the printed version.

Interesting, and likely to drive Richard a little nuts.

Its dead, Jim

UPN announces the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise. This shouldn't suprise anyone, as ENT was a nice idea botched repeatedly. It doesn't help that since ST:TNG debuted in 1987, at least one version of Star Trek -sometimes as many as three- has been on television.

The franchise needs time to catch its breath, and maybe come back stronger in a few years.

Free Boners for everyone!

The geniuses who run Medicare have decided that “lifestyle” drugs like Viagra will be considered part of the new boondoggle-and-a-half prescription drug problem.

Seriously, your tax dollars at work: Making sure every old guy in America can get it up.

Now, this shouldn’t cost us too much . According to an industry analyst, since most Medicare recipients are past the 40-60 target age of Viagra and its ilk, this should only be worth about $50-$100 million annually. Considering the total cost of the drug plan is anywhere from $300 - $500 billion, why should we care?

Sickels on the M's Prospects

John Sickels has his last column up on ESPN. He's heading over to a new spot called MinorLeagueBall.com (not up yet), but his swan song for Disney's Meal Ticket gives his Top-10 prospects, broken down hitters/pitchers. Two M's make the list- Jeremy Reed is #10, and King Felix is #1 amongst pitchers. It's difficult not to get excited about Hernandez, especially reading this:

The best combination of stuff, projection, youth, command, and statistics in the minor leagues. A potential ace, no question -- if he can stay healthy.

I haven't been this excited about a prospect in looooong time.