The Name is Bland, James Bland

I must say, I am supremely disappointed with the direction the James Bond franchise is going. Growing up with Pierce Brosnan as Bond has given me certain criteria for what makes James Bond great. He is suave, sophisticated, polished, charming and smart. He need not outmuscle what he can outwit and outmaneuver. But whoever is writing the current James Bond plots needs to go.

The supporters of the new bond over the old bond seem to be preaching that this new bond is better because it is “realistic.” The problem with that is that James Bond is not meant to be a realistic franchise. In real life one British guy is not taking down elaborate plots to destroy the world with a couple of gadgets and a silenced pistol. But he always does and we love it. This new bond manages to combine atrocious plots with unrealistic sequences, and then follow it up with dialogue that would make The Drew Carey Show seem witty.

The Daniel Craig “chip on my shoulder” Bond is not Bond. It is not the way it was meant to be. I was trying to figure out what his half confused half angry look reminded me of, and it came to me. The look is the exact same as the look Paul Walker uses in roughly every scene in “The Fast and the Furious."

( I am tempted to make several ONE LOOK Zoolander references right now, but I will refrain, I might not be able to stop if I get started)

Furthermore, the plot of “Quantum of Solace” was quite simply appalling. They use the “Oh by the way, did we mention the guy Bond nabbed from the last movie was actually innocent?” cop out and do not elaborate at all, which was frustrating. The girl in this movie was a slap in the face to audiences everywhere. Here is her role in the plot as I see it. Her jerk-off boyfriend tries to have her killed and fails, she comes back to confront him, where he gives her up to some sort of Guerrilla leader to be raped and killed. After she escapes, she GOES BACK TO TALK TO HIM AGAIN, where would have thrown her off a balcony if not for the timely Bond. Wow. Talk about an ridiculous plot. Just wow.

But, my all time favorite scene of the movie is near the end where Bond has just saved that girl who was being assaulted by the aforementioned Guerrilla leader/dictator (whoever he was). So that guy is dead, and she is obviously traumatized, so Bond decides to have a touching moment where he comforts her for a good 15 seconds. Here’s the problem… THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE. This is no time to aid those in morning, Run! Get the f%#@ out of there! (this is a family-friendly page) The building is on fire.

For the sake of my sanity I will not elaborate on the awful chase scene where bond eludes fighter jets with the plane built by the Wright brothers, and other equally annoying scenes, and concede that the Pierce is not coming back, and that the Bond franchise will continue to make more and more money even as the movies get worse and worse.

James Bond's new plane of choice

Next Year Can't Come Quickly Enough

Being the hopeless homer optimist that I am when it comes to Minnesota sports teams, I wrote a piece about the possible excitement and buzz that this Timberwolves team could create this year. Sure, they were not going to be a legitimate title contender. But I felt that it would at the bare minimum be a season with young talent on the court. I though we would be able to watch them slowly begin to gel and get a better feel for what it takes to be a winner as a professional basketball player. I thought at the very least an entertaining product would be put on the court day in and day out.

I was wrong.

Watching a Timberwolves game is like watching animal planet. You watch the gazelle try to cross the river. You know that isn’t a log, but rather a crocodile. You yell at your TV, and try to warn the gazelle. You plead with the gazelle to listen to your cries. A part of you truly thinks the gazelle will evade the savvy and patient croc’s awaiting jaws. But, in the end the crocodile does get a meal, and the wolves do lose the game.

The 4-23 record of the fighting Al Jefferson’s is disheartening unto itself, however other factors are rubbing salt in my wounds. First of all I would like to officially declare unto the world a list of players we could still have and if we had a GM that did not get a secret lobotomy (it’s my new theory), probably would still have. I have taken the liberty of placing the player that was kept/received instead in parenthesis. Please bear with me, I know this is painful, but it’s for the good of all…the first step is acceptance.
Ray Allen (Stephon Marbury)
Chauncey Billups (the corpse of Troy Hudson)
Kevin Garnett (Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, and others who must not be named)
Josh Howard (Ndudi Ebi)
Brandon Roy (Randy Foye and 1 million dollars no doubt used on hard alcohol to “stop the hurt”)
O.J. Mayo, Marko Jaric’s bloated contract (3 very white guys)
5 first round draft picks (Joe Smith and a shady “1 year contract”)

Look at all the talent that has slipped through our collective fingers… I feel like all the Wolves fans should band together for a huge A.A.-like meeting to nurse our 20 years of frustrations.

“Hi I’m Jake…and I’ve been a T-Wolves fan for about 20 years now… and I am still haunted by Tom Gugliotta’s barbed wire tattoo
“We’re here for you Jake”

A second, even more melancholy note is that the wolves play a more disheveled game than that most high school teams. Rashad McCants keeps getting significant minutes despite mistaking basketball for a game of hot potato. “I don’t want the ball, I’ll just throw it at the rim 11 times then go home to the lesser Kardashian sister”. There are batting averages higher than McCants and Seabass Telfair’s FG% (.344 and .307 respectively) Joe Mauer should not be able to hit 87 mph sliders more efficiently

than these chuckers can hit a jump shot. By the way, has the barbed wire ever been in style? I'm leaning towards no.

But, the single most appalling, egregious, outrageous (insert Johnny Cochrane adjective here) aspect of the Wolves is that we still insist on allowing people like Brian Cardinal, Mark Madsen, and Kevin Ollie to log significant minutes. These men would not be getting minutes for the Golden Gophers right now, so why let them play with the big boys? Nobody is paying hard earned money to see a Kevin Ollie pull up jumper in traffic, so let’s just quietly buy out their contracts and forget they ever happened…agree? (Please, if there is a god agree)

join me in counting down the days till the draft, where we can see how the Wolves will blow it this time around.

Give'em a wolves uniform too, what's the worst that could happen?

7 Simple Rules for a Better America

Barack Obama ran a campaign on the principle of change. I, too have some changes that I believe need to be made to improve our great nation.

(Note: This picture will make sense to you in a bit, please help us try to find him a new home)

1) Regis Philbin gets a new game show every 4-6 weeks no questions asked. I can’t control the volume of my voice! Its gonna be huge! He is unequivocally the greatest host ever. He could make an episode of According to Jim watchable.

2) Gus Johnson gives the play by play of every major sporting event effective immediately. Once, when watching an NCAA tournament game last year, a white guy from Maine whom Gus affectionately dubbed the “White Lobster” hit a couple of threes, and Gus screeched, “The White Lobster….Is COOKIN’!!” I wanted to cry right there it was so beautiful. If you are still not convinced check out this quick youtube video of him calling the end of a Gonzaga game where he may or may not have needed a new lung shortly thereafter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgeqrYxu_YM

3) Public tarring and feathering will become commonplace again after everyone has so much fun watching Rosie O’Donnell get publicly humiliated by someone besides herself for a change. Also spontaneous “anti-redcoat” mobs will be formed to trick Dick Clark into thinking he’s a teenager again... Dick Clark is really old.

4) The guy that Dick Cheney shot in the face gets to have 1 “shoot Dick Cheney in the face” for free pass that he can use at any time. Afterwords, Dick must apologize to the shooter for being shot in the face, and promise that he, Dick Cheney, will not get shot in the face ever again.

5) Tom Delonge is banished to a Leper Colony for starting the unbearable band, Angels and Airwaves, and provided with the world’s biggest mirror so he can spend the rest of his days staring at what he believes to be God’s gift to this planet.

"I love myself so much it hurts sometimes!"

6) Any kid who plays basketball in jeans will be kicked off that team and his/her parents will lose custody of said child for allowing this to happen.

7) And finally, Mel Gibson is forced to celebrate Hanukkah every year. I would love to see the tension develop every day of celebration as his mind fills with anti-Semitic remarks directly beneath an awkwardly placed yarmulke.

I know the world would be a much better place with these simple rules being implemented.