The Frinklin and Fred Show

Quote of the Year (Sports Executive Division)

I'm surprised my blogpartner didn't pick up on this, since it involves his team.

A while back, the Mariners handed Ichiro a big fat contract extension. There has been some debate over whether the contract was too big, particularly considering that Ichiro will be pushing 40 by the time the extension runs its course. You can make the case that Ichiro is a wizard with the bat, is a beloved icon in Seattle, and is therefore worth every penny. Or you could make the case that blowing $90 million on a guy with little power who may well break down in the next couple seasons is excessive. Either is a reasonable position.

Or, if you are Marlins president David Samson, you can declare that the contract is "the end of the world as we know it." This isn't a particularly reasonable position, but hey, it's a free country.

An enterprising reporter asked Mariners GM Bill Bavasi if he had any comment on Samson's assertion. Bavasi, not usually known as a quote machine, responded thus:

“My mother always taught me that if the only thing you have to say is, '(Expletive) Dave Samson,’ then don’t say anything at all. So I’m not going to say anything at all. Is my mother the greatest or what?”

Mrs. Bavasi, apparently, could not be reached for comment.

Bill Bavasi, you are my new hero. Rock on.

(h/t USS Mariner)

Uhh... Okay

I've been on a Lord of the Rings kick the past couple days, so I finally went ahead and ripped my copies of the soundtrack to my iPod. I have iTunes set up to automatically find and add the album art when I rip, and for Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King there was no difficulty. We did have an issue with The Two Towers for some reason. Instead of this:

Huh.

How Can I Leave this Behind?

The best thing to come out of Live Earth? No question.

Actually, probably needed more bass.

The Red, White and Blue

As a Independence Day present, Bully gives us 76 flag-themed comic covers. Check out the coolness. I only own about a dozen.

When in the Course of human events...

Amateur Movie Review: Transformers

If you are between 25-35 you know about the Transformers. A massively successful toy line in the 80's, it spawned a TV series and an animated movie. The storyline never changes: massive robots from a dead world land on Earth, impersonate pick-up trucks and fighter planes, and beat the bejezus out of each other.

The movie hews pretty closely to the established Transformer mythos. Dead planet, centuries long war between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons, Earth caught in the middle. As this is a Michael Bay picture – a Michael Bay picture based on a toy-turned-TV series, no less – plot isn't really all that important. All the Transformers are looking for the All Spark, a giant cube that can either return life to Cybertron or turn Earth into Cyberton, Jr. The key to finding this thing is a kid named Sam Witwickey (Shia LaBeauf) who has the coordinates to the All Spark encrypted on his great-grandfather's glasses.

Boy, that made even less sense after I type it.

Still, doesn't matter. This movie is about action and there is plenty of it. We have running. We have shooting. We have yelling. We have shooting while running and yelling and we have yelling while running and shooting. Sometimes we don't have yelling, just running and shooting. Always running and shooting. This movie runs a thousand miles an hour from the first scene (a US Army base in Qatar gets blown to smithereens by a Decepticon) and never, ever lets up. The effects are spectacular, from the CGI robots to the amazing car chase scenes (three of 'em!) and dizzying final battle through the streets of Los Angeles.

Not everything can be CGI, so there is a rather impressive human cast, led by LaBeauf, an enormously appealing young actor and old hands like Jon Voight as the square-jawed Secretary of Defense and a scenery-chewing John Turtorro as the head of secret government operation that knows about the robots This is Michael Bay's world, so the women are preposterously good-looking and there is a surfeit of gun-toting hero-types such as Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as survivors of the Qatar attack.

Is it necessary to be a pop-culture obsessed Gen X type on a nostalgia trip to enjoy this movie? No, but it helps. There is a certain thrill the first time Optimus Prime come around a corner or when Megatron sneers “fleshling” like it's 1986 again, but it isn't necessary. This movie is just so damned much fun, anybody willing to buy into the concept will enjoy it.

Okay, look: this movie features giant outer-space robots with swords. Tell me that isn't cool!