Dan Marino is a psycho.

Geez, Dan - where was this fire when Finkel's goons were kidnapping you in Ace Ventura?

Kobel
http://HittingTheFlow.com

Tuesday Head to Head #1: Uncle Phil vs. Carl Winslow

Two classic TV dads from the early 90's. Let's figure this one out.

Occupation:

Carl: Is in his 40’s and has yet to rise above the rank of Sergeant in the Chicago Police Department.

Uncle Phil: Has risen from an early life on a farm to a successful lawyer and later a prominent Los Angeles judge.

Parenting:

Carl: Uses the ‘do good for others’ approach to punishment as evident by the time he made Eddie volunteer for Meals on Wheels. His kids are well-grounded and he is also a father figure for Richie and Steve. However, one has to question what kind of father would let their daughter Judy disappear one summer and never be heard from again.

Uncle Phil: You aren’t going to get much by him. He has a strong nose for discipline and will employ whatever punishment the situation calls for. He is a stubborn dad, but will eventually come around if he is out of line – an example being when Ashley wanted to go to public school. He was kind enough to bring Will into his home and treated him as his own son.

Marriage:

Carl: Clearly does not wear the pants in the family.

Uncle Phil: Clearly does not wear the pants in the family.

Are you going to just sit there and take that?:

Carl: How many times is he going to let Urkel ruin his house and sexually harass his daughter before he dishes out an old-fashion ass-kicking? The kid sued him on national TV for Christ’s sake!

Uncle Phil: Geoffrey is the man's butler. How can he let him stand there time after time and insult him in front of his family like that? He should have fired his ass a long time ago.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a tough call. Who would you all go with?

Giants thoughts: What, me worry?

It wasn’t the most pretty a victory, but there was plenty of good to take away from the win.

- The defense bounced back in a big way from their atrocious performance against the Browns – 6 sacks, 3 forced fumbles, 2 interceptions, a safety and only 11 rushing yards for Frank Gore. Great effort.

- In particular, Chase Blackburn (8 tackles, 1 sack, 1 FF) Justin Tuck (2 sacks, 2 FF) and Michael Johnson (2 INT) had huge games. I hope Antonio Pierce is back soon, but Blackburn will fill in just fine until he does.

- Domenik Hixon didn’t have a single catch, but proved big on special teams. He has two great tackles in punt coverage and downed a ball inside the 5 yard line – though it was called back on an illegal touch penalty.

- The offensive pass interference against Plaxico was an awful, awful call. Still, there is no excuse for him picking up an unsportsmanlike penalty two plays later. As for Eli forcing the ball to him, I think there may be some truth to that. Eli certainly isn’t spreading the ball around like he did in the Seattle game and he threw to Plax when he had three guys on him yesterday.

- As for Eli, not his best work, but he didn’t turn the ball over like he did last week.

- Terrible 3rd down play yesterday – 4-14 ain’t going to cut it.

Overall, there is room for improvement and the offense needs to find a rhythm. Next week is when the schedule gets tough so let’s hope they work the kinks out before then.

- Kobel
http://www.HittingTheFlow.com

Man Eats 15 Pound Burger.

The 5-foot-11, 180-pound western Pennsylvania chef is the first person to eat a monstrosity called the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser: a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds.

Why?

-Ken
http://www.HittingTheFlow.com

Will the monkey waiter trend spread to the U.S.?

More monkey waiters = less tips. So I can only hope.

-Kobel
http://www.HittingTheFlow.com

Ken's Top 5 Board Games of All-Time

5) Candy Land

You need at least one nostalgia pick on the list and this is a good one.

It doesn’t get much simpler than Candy Land. It’s all luck with no skill whatsoever. Shit, you don’t even need to know how to count since you just follow the colors.

Regardless, Candy Land is a cool ass place. Who didn’t want to live there as a kid? It’s a land made out of candy for Christ’s sake. And I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t mind getting a lick of Princess Lolly. (See what I did there?)

For a simple game, it produced a decent amount of drama. I remember many a time when someone was about to taste victory only to draw the Plumpy card and get sent all the way back to the beginning. On the flipside, it was common to see the person in last place draw the Queen Frostine card and suddenly be on the verge of winning.

And don’t even get me started on Lord Licorice – that miserable prick.



4) Scattegories

An every man for themselves battle that is a sure fire crowd pleaser.

The best part of the game is the amount of thought that goes into it. You cant just put anything down on paper and expect no one else to answer the same thing. If you really want to earn points you need to outthink the opposition. That’s my kind of game.



3) Risk

The classic game of world domination is held in the highest regard by those who play it.

There is a ton of strategy, shit-talking levels of epic proportions and the obligatory “the Ukraine is weak” zinger at least once a game. Best of all, you get a serious sense of accomplishment whenever you win – it’s as if you really are Napoleon.

The only drawback is the amount of effort that goes into organizing a game. You need 4-6 somewhat sober people who all have at least 2 hours on their hands. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, a great time is had by all.



2) Trivial Pursuit

May the man with the most useless knowledge win.

Trivial Pursuit has the same effect on people as Jeopardy in the sense that if you win you automatically feel smarter than someone. And why shouldn’t you? It takes a lot of effort to collect all of those goddamn wedges.

Pursuit is also versatile in the sense that you don’t need to have a full game to declare the better man. It works just fine to have lighting rounds where a full card is asked to two people with the winner being the one to get the most correct.

And like Risk, Trivial Pursuit is the subject of a classic Seinfeld line:

George (to the bubble boy): Oh no… The answer is Moops.

That episode was gold.



1) Pictionary

For my money, it doesn’t get any better than Pictionary.

The game lends itself great for a party atmosphere since you can have multiple teams with multiple payers on each one. The drama created is tremendous as you race to beat the clock. All involved are sure to be drawn into the excitement.

It is also a humbling game, but a gentlemanly one at the same time. If your drawing of “corn on the cob” blows, you are going to hear it from the table. However, these same people will give you some well-deserved compliments if you are able to pull-off a drawing of “toxic waste.”

Throughout a game you’re sure to laugh, cry, get mad, argue and - above all else - have a blast… What more do you need?

-Kobel
http://www.hittingtheflow.com

NKOTB

I'm assuming this song's popularity (if it had any) has come and gone since the video was posted 4 months ago. Oh well, I've never been one to be on top of the latest trends.

Either way, I'll be damned if that isn't a catching song. The boys still got it.

And here's a classic for all my fellow New Kids fans.



*NSYNC wishes they had skills like that...

-Ken
http://www.hittingtheflow.com

What the bloody hell was that, G-Men?

I know, I know. We’re Super Bowl Champions so don’t complain over one loss, but goddamn that was pathetic.

- The person in charge of player relations needs to be fired because clearly Mathias Kiwanuke and Justin Tuck never got memos telling them there was a game last night.

The pass rush was abysmal. I don’t remember Anderson taking a hit all game. When they fail to apply pressure their defense becomes average as was evident. This was the first time all year that we missed Osi.

- It looks like Eli is still going to have bad games because those 3 picks were 100% his fault. He forced it to Burress on the first one, he threw outside when he should have thrown inside on the second and God only knows what he was thinking on the third.

A poor showing, but I’m not too concerned.

- No sense of urgency at all towards the end. The drove the ball all the way to the red zone with the no huddle and then inexplicably went back to it. Awful, awful clock management.

- On the Brightside, Derrick Ward played great and so did Steve Smith. That’s about it though.

They’re still in first place in the conference and have a game they should win next week against the 49ers before things get tough – so it’s not time to panic.

Hopefully this will reignite the fire under their ass.

-Kobel
http://www.hittingtheflow.com

You... are... NOT the father!

This is a classic clip with some top-notch commentary. Kudos, to whoever made it.

It boggles my mind that Maury hasn’t come out with a ‘Best of Paternity Tests’ DVD yet. The crying, the victory dances, the “I told you that’s your baby” moments – who wouldn’t watch that?

Hell, they can make a full box-set if they throw in best of 'Send My Teen to Boot Camp,’ ‘From Geek to Chic’ and ‘Controlling Husbands.’

I can only dream…

- Kobel
http://www.hittingtheflow.com

Jim Carrey - magic man?

The other night, my friend Paul said Jim Carrey only plays roles where some kind of magic or magical circumstances happen to him.

Only one way to find out.

-Ace Ventura: No
-The Mask: Yes
-Dumb and Dumber: No
-Cable Guy: No
-Liar Liar: Yes
-Truman Show: Yes
-Man on the Moon: No
-Me, Myself and Irene: Yes
-How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Yes
-Bruce Almighty: Yes
-Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind: Yes
-Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events: Yes
-Fun with Dick and Jane: I believe no
-The Number 23: I believe yes

Overall, Paul was on to something – especially in the current stage of Jim’s career.

Take a look at this list though. Is there any doubt that Carrey is one of the most underrated actors of our time? At this point he’s putting less thought into what roles he plays, but he was tremendous in his early days. This list proves it as the first 8 movies are all gold, but you never hear his name mentioned at award shows.

…He must cry himself to sleep on a mountain of money every night.

-Kobel
http://www.hittingtheflow.com

Which shows stand the test of time?

Whenever a childhood favorite of mine is added to the “Nick at Nite” lineup I wonder two things:

1) Am I really this fucking old?
2) Was this actually funny when I was a kid?

I’ll focus on the latter, because the former just depresses me. While some shows have stood the test of time, others clearly haven’t.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:



This is a rare instance of a show getting better with age.

Will’s outfits, Carlton’s dancing, Geoffrey’s zingers and Uncle Phil’s Jazz tossing – its all gold. The pop-culture references are obviously out-dated, but I actually understand them now as opposed to when I was a kid.

Best of all, the show doesn’t get too serious. Sure, there are hard-hitting episodes – Will’s father coming back still gets to me – but, on the whole, the show is all about laughing it up while subtly getting their serious points across.

Most importantly, it reminds everyone that us white people are lame.

Home Improvement:



This one is hit or miss.

Tim Allen is good for some laughs each episode - especially during the Tool Time segments when he is ripping on Al or misquoting Wilson’s words of wisdom.

Jill is the typical sitcom wife – a wet blanket, yet somehow always right. The kids don’t add much since I could care less about Brad’s girl troubles, Marc’s problems adjusting to school or whatever the hell disease they gave JTT.

Overall, it’s watchable, but nowhere near Fresh Prince - though the episode where Shooter McGavin comes back as Tim’s old college buddy is hysterical.

Family Matters:



This isn’t pretty.

How many times can we watch Urkel fall through a roof, drive into the house, throw a bowling ball through a window – the list goes on.

The whole thing gets old fast and Carl’s humor every now and then can’t save it.

And for the record, Laura is one shallow bitch.


Full House:



Family Matters may be bad, but this show takes the cake – it is complete garbage.

Yea, the jokes are lame and we’re supposed to believe that Uncle Jesse is a cool dude even though he lives in his brother-in-laws basement – but that’s not my issue.

No, my problem is that every episode needs to teach us a goddamn lesson. Stephanie learns her classmate’s father kicks the shit out of him – lesson: you need to tell people if abuse is happening. D.J. tries to lose weight and faints – lesson: be happy with who you are. Joey plays a hockey game and resists punching out the asshole who deserved it – lesson: it’s OK to be a pussy.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all valid things to show kids – but why the hell was Full House doing the teaching? Apparently, America was too dumb to be parents themselves and needed Bob Saget to show their kids right from wrong. Give me a break.

Any others come to mind?

-Kobel
www.hittingtheflow.com

Kobes Other Ventures

Just a quick note that apart from his MMA blog at www.intelligentlydefending.com, the MMA thoughts of The Kobes can now also be found at www.mmarated.com.

No foolin.

Holla.

- Kobes

Top 5: Game Shows of All-Time

Carmine’s Top 5 Game Shows

5. Stump the Schwab: This is your classic sports trivia show. However, once the contestants weed out one another through games like “Coaching Ladder” and “Odd Man Out,” they then face-off against the “Sultan of Sports Trivia” Howie Schwab for a chance to win a measly $5000. Make no mistake, I’d do a lot of things for 5k, things I would sorely regret, but I say measly because shows like “Deal or No Deal” give out hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing. In this show you have to take-on a former editor-in-chief of College and Pro Football News Weekly who knows an ungodly amount about sports for pride, because the money ain’t the draw. I equate the Schwab to Mike Tyson in Punch-Out. You gotta go through much lesser opponents, who can be dangerous if they catch you off guard, and once you pound through them you’re faced with a challenge that is nearly unbeatable. With Mike Tyson, its one punch and you’re done. With Schwabby, you better not get a question wrong, because he will make you pay. I would put this show possibly in my top 3 if it weren’t hosted by Stuart Scott. The man makes me cringe at least once per show, with his obnoxious efforts to unsuccessfully merge his marginal knowledge of hip-hop with sports.

4. Supermarket Sweep: DanO, a prestigious writer for The Flow holds the opinion that Supermarket Sweep had only one good thing going for it…the sweep. While the all-out bedlam that is “the sweep” certainly is the climax of the show, Supermarket Sweep was riddled with exciting and ultimately significant tidbits. One of which was how they chose the contestants. They used a Price is Right style random selection from the audience except instead of using names they would say “would the audience member holding the Depends undergarments come on dooooooooooooooooooooown!!!” It can be said that the little mini-games for the first half of the show are just filler material, but they did hold significance when it came to the sweep. A team with a 2 minute head-start was nearly unbeatable. During the sweep, we were blessed with the opportunity to see men, women, and homosexuals alike pounce on everyday products, get extra points for getting “special products” (a la the coffee grinders) and run into gigantic BONUS items (one that comes to mind was a fucking life-sized jolly green giant). Once the winner of the Big Sweep is determined (quite often the gay couple because they have two men, and clearly know the most about shopping), the winners would get a chance at…. You guessed it $5000 (notice a theme?). This was very challenging however, as they were given a clue that only someone giving a Holmes-ian effort could decode and find the subsequent product. Once they solved the first clue, they had to solve two more clues. Supermarket Sweep: We. Know. Drama.





3. Double Dare: Fact. Marc Summers was a germaphobe. Keeping that in the back of your mind makes this show that much more enjoyable. Since Double Dare went off the air, all the major slime companies have since been put out of business, except of course for Taco Bell. All joking aside, Double Dare, unlike most game shows started off with a fucking bang. As the show began, Mr. Summers would shout “ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, GOOOOOOOO!” and anarchy would ensue. Families would wage war in a physical challenge (usually filling some container to a certain point with slime or a liquid that looked suspiciously like semen). This was mainly for bragging rights (and control of the buzzer). After that, you had some questions, but if I were on a team, I’m hoping for some young country boy with a rat-tail or a mullet from the other team (that accurately described 80-90% of the Double Dare contestants) to try my ass in a physical challenge. I think my favorite physical challenge was “Pie in the Pants” if just for the name alone. The team with the most points at the end of regulation got to participate in the obstacle course…..



My immediate thoughts when watching any Double Dare obstacle course is “how many sweatshops are they running to make all this fucking slime?” or “how many alien bukkake’s are they cleaning up after to get all this fucking slime?” Because of Double Dare, Nickelodeon had so much excess goo that they started marketing it as a toy! No joke. Anyone remember Nickelodeon Gak?



2. Match Game PM: When I watch this show I think one thing… “I wish I was alive in the 70s.” For those of you who don’t know about this show, you’ve got to check it out. I described it to my boy Kenny Kobes as “it was a bunch of c-listers sitting on a panel getting sauced up and smoking cigs, and the point was for the contestants to come up with the same answers that the celebs would write down, except the celebs got so drunk they always made their answers about booze or titties.” Anyone who has seen the show can say that this description is spot fucking on. The host, a masterful Gene Rayburn, would ask a fill-in the blank style question, except the question almost always had a very sexual or drug related connotation. Flirtatious Frannie was so flirtatious. HOW FLIRTATIOUs WAS SHE? Flirtatious Frannie was so flirtatious, when Billy the Bellboy showed her to her room, she showed him her_________. I just made that up but I can attest that the ones on the show made it even easier to shout words like “pussy” and “tits” at the TV. Except this was the 70s, so they called parts of the anatomy much more obscure names by today’s standards. For boobs, they used words like “dunes,” “humps,” and “buzzums.” Besides the humorous answers provided by their cast of characters, there was so much else going on to make this show pure gold. There was the obviously drunken and stoned celebrities, as well as the stoned Gene Rayburn. The drug use is made apparent by watching any video of the show (see below). In fact, Match Game would make for one helluva E! True Hollywood Story. I find it impossibly hard to imagine that the backstage area consisted of anything but a gigantic mound of yayo that hosted several orgies before and after each show (remember: the 70s). Another great piece of unintentional humor was the contestant. The contestents were one of two types of people. On the one side there was the straight-edge “deer-in-the-headlights-what-did-I-fucking-get-myself-into” contestant. Then there was also the “Jesus let’s get this over with so I can get high with Charles Nelson Reilly and then fuck Fannie Flagg” contestant. This game show is legendary because no one cared about the prizes, or the pride, everyone just wanted to have the time of their lives and get as messed up as possible doing so.



1. Jeopardy: For my piece on Jeopardy, I am just going to refer you to my colleague Kenny Kobes’ flawless commentary on what is truly the #1 game show of all time.

Kobes’ Top 5 game Shows

5) Debt

This little-known gem ran from 1996-1998 and was hosted by game show legend Wink Martindale. The premise of the game was an interesting one – three people deep in debt play the game with the winner having their spending problems paid off. It was Jeopardy style, with a board of categories and questions. Unlike Jeopardy though, it was all pop-culture which meant you could easily play along – no-matter how dumb you were.

In the end, the winner had the option of walking away debt-free OR answering a bonus question from their area of specialty. If they got the question correct they would not only pay off their debt, but would also double the amount to take home. If they got it wrong, they walked away empty-handed. This part always pissed me off because of the stupidity these people showed in picking their categories. Why would you choose a vast topic like The Simpsons, when you could just as easily say your specialty was a 2-hour movie like Home Alone? Morons…

4) Family Feud

Its time to play the Feud!!!

Hell yea, it doesn’t get much better than this. Everyone knows this long-running series, though I would only include the Roger Dawson and Ray Combs versions as respectable – sorry Al Borland.

The show was simple, a question was asked to 100 people and 2 families had to figure out the most popular answers. Easy, right? Well no, because this show gave us some of the worst answers in game show history. Don’t believe me? Check out this clip…



The Fast Money round at the end was the best with 2 family members going for the $10,000 prize, which most of the time had some great drama since the damn thing was so hard to win it seemed.

No doubt a classic show.

3) Legends of the Hidden Temple

You could say ‘Legends’, and anyone between the ages of 25-20 is going to know what you’re talking about. This was the SHIT when we were young.

The premise was 6 teams of 2 searching an ancient artifact which has somehow got lost in a temple guarded by a talking boulder and…

You know what, who gives a fuck?

The premise didn’t matter. In fact, the first 3 rounds didn’t matter and actually, they sucked. The Steps of Knowledge were particularly horrendous – is this a game show or history class? Not to mention the host looked like a kid-toucher if I ever saw one.

Everyone watched this show for one reason and one reason only – the Temple Run. The Temple may very well be the most elaborate piece of equipment ever built in game show history (rivaling the Finders Keepers set… look it up). It had everything: secret doorways, puzzles, the always pain-in-the-ass Silver Monkey and the Temple Guards. Goddamn those temple guards always popping out of nowhere and scaring the shit out of me.

If a team somehow made it through the Temple in less than 2 minutes they won a trip to Space Camp. Hell yea! Word to Olmec.

Here is a team falling juuuuust short – sucks for them, right Reed?:



2) The Price is Right

Grandma Betty come on down!!!

Johnny Fratboy, you are about to play Plinko!!!

If you stayed home from school as a kid, your TV was turned to CBS at 11am because ‘Bob Barker and the fabulous 60 minute Price is Right’ was about to hit the airwaves.

I can’t even begin to describe what made this show so great, but I’ll try.

It all starts with Bob Barker. He was amazing in the role of host. The old women loved him and the college kids idolized him. It always seemed like he was genuinely happy when people won a big prize. He may have been inappropriate with a few of Barker’s Beauties backstage, but so what? Hell, they were probably asking for it.

The games were classic. There are too many to name, but some of my favorites were: Golden Road, Plinko, Punch Board, Hole in One (or Two), Clock Game, Cliff Hanger, Dice Game the list goes on an on.

Then came the Big Wheel and the Showcase Showdown… Fuhgetaboutit… This game had it all.

You could play along at home and cheer for the people playing on your TV. You felt their pain when they lost or joy when they won – that, my friends, is why this show was so special. (Note: I say WAS special, because without Bob Barker there is no Price is Right. Ya heard?)

There are so many great videos on YouTube to choose from, but I think this one really expresses all I have written about:



1) Jeopardy

The greatest game show of all-time... What is Jeopardy? (see what I did there?)

We all know the rules and how the game works. We all know how simple it is. We all know who hosts it.

So how has the game managed to survive all these years without ever changing its format?

Simple, answering Jeopardy questions makes people feel smart.

It’s true. Have you ever been in a room with a group of people when Jeopardy was on? Watch someone when they get a question right – it’s like they just split the atom. I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon but it happens. The show has managed to market itself as the ultimate test of knowledge -- despite the fact that it’s just useless trivia.

Still, like many others, I can’t get enough of it. In college it was a dorm room ritual that we would watch Jeopardy every night. I’m not lying when I say that disputed answers sometimes came close to full-out brawls. And the winner? Forget it. You could expect to hear shit-talking from him until the next day when another episode aired.

After all, winning an episode of Jeopardy proves you are smarter than someone.

Watchu Gonna Do, When Kimbo and The Hulkster...

... Run Wild On You!?!?!

Lets try to figure out the magnitude of this, shall we?

Street brawler, turned MMA fighter Kimbo Slice and pro-wrestling icon, turned walking joke Hulk Hogan in a movie... a kids movie... a 3D kids movie... called Kung-Fu U.

Good freaking God this is going to be good. It's at a time like this I wish I was friends with the Ganja Queen.

We all know that the Hulkster is a proven Hollywood icon with such box-office hits as Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny and No Holds Barred. The man can act, simple as that. The question is, can Kimbo hold his own alongside a thespian like Hogan? Only time will tell.

In closing, I'll leave you with the theatrical trailer for Hulk's greatest work to date... Santa With Muscles.



-Kobes

Yo-Yo Ma

After seeing the Yo-Yo World Championships on TV yesterday I decided its time to invest. From what I remember from my youth, Duncan was the company to go with. More research will tell if that’s still the case.

I imagine chicks dig a guy who can handle a yo-yo, though that is an unfounded claim at this point. I suppose, we shall see.

In the meantime, check out this guy’s skillz.

-Kobes

Teen Gets 8 Years For Giving Toddler Pot

This guy took being the 'cool uncle' way too far.

This guy is now going to jail for 8 years!!! 8 years of his life in exchange for a few laughs while he and his buddy were stoned.

That, my friends, blows.

Of course, the reason he was caught in the first place was because the cops were at his house investigating a robbery he was suspected in, so odds are he was ending up in jail anyway.

Now, here’s the kicker. I searched YouTube in the hopes of finding a video of the incident. I came up empty, but to my surprise there was ANOTHER video of two teenagers getting a toddler to smoke weed.



Just business as usual at the trailer park, I suppose. You talk about a shitty way of getting caught: the dude sells his camcorder to a pawn shop a year later and forgets to delete the footage. Ouch...

-Kobes

The Flow's Adventures in Nostalgia #1: Mousetrap

I’m sure everyone remembers this sucka from the early 90’s.

To be perfectly honest I don’t remember how you play, all I remember is being letdown time and time again by this monstrosity.

Setting up the actual Mousetrap took a good ten minutes, though I admit, it is an impressive sight to behold once you’re done. I guarantee they had a lot of fun thinking this thing up.

Anyway, when I played this I was about 5-years-old so, as I mentioned, the specific rules are a bit fuzzy. However, I do know that once you reached the end it took an obnoxiously long time to finally finish. It seemed like no matter how far in the lead you were the game inevitably ended with all players having a shot at winning. Of course, I used to play with my older cousins so God knows if they were being legit with the rules since I was to dumb to know otherwise.

So after what seems like an eternity you finally get to release the Mousetrap which is what you’ve been waiting for all game. And here comes the disappointment. Did you notice in the commercial when the creepy looking cartoon cat sings “knock the marble right down the shoot. Now watch it roll, hit the pole, and knock the man in the rub-a-dub-tub?” My ass! Without fail every single freaking time I played that part would never work correctly. Maybe my game was defective or maybe it wasn’t aligned correctly. I don’t know what it was, but I do know that we would manually have to get the diver to perform the most spastic dive known to man… Thornton Melon he ain’t.

As far as board games go, Mousetrap was all hype and as anticlimactic as it got. Though if nothing else, while searching for the Mousetrap commercial I found the following video which almost makes all those wasted hours worth it…



-Kobes

The Flow Review of "Giant: Road to the Super Bowl" by Plaxico Burress

Here are some thoughts on Plaxico Burress’ new book “Giant: The Road to the Super Bowl".

- It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever heard Plax talk that he did not write the book himself. It was ghost written by Jason Cole who acknowledges at the end that he interviewed Burress for hours on end and then produced the book. No big deal since this is usually the case with celebrity biographies.

- Similar to Strahan’s book, which was ghost-written by Jay Glazer, Cole goes out of his way to make the words sound as if they are coming out of Plax’s mouth verbatim. He did a pretty good job based on the number of times he wrote “so then I was like to the guy ‘how you gonna play me like that’” or “that’s just how it was in my neighborhood, you got your ass beat for shit like that.” Overall, I found the tone to be pretty good and preferred the authentic nature of them.

- Other than the dialogue, it’s much different than Strahan’s book. Burress biography reads as a straight biography, documenting his life from childhood, to college, to the pros. It follows this order and then throws in chapters on specific people like his mother, Eli, Shockey and Coughlin. In contrast, Strahan’s book was more about taking you inside life in the NFL where he talks about rookie hazing, the injuries, trash-talking, getting tickets on the road and what its like to play on Sunday.

- It was amazing to read about how much Burress went through last year to play. The ankle injury he got in Week 2 took the ligament off the bone. Then when he slipped in the shower before the Super Bowl he said he could barely walk and had a shoulder injury on top of this. It’s no wonder we Giant fans love the guy so much.

Overall, it was a very good read that I went through in about 4 days on the train. I wish I could have heard more about life in the NFL like in Strahan’s book, but the parts Plax included about his childhood in the mean streets of Virginia made up for this. The stuff about the Super Bowl was amazing as he described how after the Patriots took the lead they started inviting the Giants to their after-party. He also has a nice write-up on how the miracle catch couldn’t have happened to a better person than David Tyree.

Overall: Highly recommended if you’re a Giants fan. Recommended if you’re a football fan.

Here are some tidbits from the book:

- Plax kills his old Michigan State head coach Nick Saban for losing his temper with players in public settings. He said for this reason Saban will never be a successful NFL coach.

- Bill Cowher on the other hand looks like a million bucks. He is described as a straight-shooter who expects the same in return.

- Coughlin doesn’t get nearly as much love as he did in Strahan’s book. “He has rules and you need to follow them,” were Plax’s main sentiments.

- A part I found funny was Burress describing how he got ready before the NFC Championship in Green Bay. Remember in Cool Runnings when the Jamaicans get to Canada and Sanka runs inside and puts on every article of clothing he has? It was pretty much like that.

- Plax loves Eli and talks a lot about what a prankster he is. He said one time Eli painted the O-line’s shoes hot purple. Another time he wiped his bare ass on Plax’s face towel which Plax used 5 minutes later.

- Burress goes on for a few pages about how so many players have kids that they pay child support for. This leads to a classic line in the book where he says “I know this one guy who has so many kids that after he pays child support he is only making $80,000-$90,000 a week. It’s killing him.”

Wow…

-Kobes

WNBA Brawl

I suppose the word 'brawl' is a little strong for this, but its the closest you're going to get in the WNBA.

Rumor is this all started when the one girl started talking shit about sleeping with the other girl's boyfriend. We're awaiting confirmation.

I'm not exactly sure how the coach shoving the one player who then attacks him fits into it. Perhaps he is said boyfriend.

On another note, it is now official that Detroit has played host to the darkest moment in both NBA and WNBA history... Kudos Motor City!

At least the ten people in the crowd got to see some action...

-Kobes

Adios, Shockster

Shockey Sent to Saints for 2nd and 5th Round Pick

Finally, after months of speculation this thing is over.

I'll admit that I, along with numerous other Giant fans, were too quick to anoint Shockey the 2nd coming of Mark Bavaro in his first few years. It just never quite panned out that way.

Don't get me wrong, he had some great seasons with the G-Men. His intensity and willingness to play through injuries were a great asset to the team.

But there were also the dropped passes, the personal fouls and the endless string of events where he displayed the maturity level of a 7th grade sex-ed class. (Though to be fair, I still laugh when I think about Shockey calling Parcells 'the homo' -- that was a good one.)

It is obvious the Giants would have been a better team if they could have kept Jeremy, but that was if -- and only if -- he was happy. It became pretty clear that he wasn't going to be, especially with his role in the offense.

It works out for both sides; though I wish the G-Men could have made this decision before the draft and got a linebacker with the 2nd round pick. Shockey is no doubt happier than a pig in shit as he gets reunited with Sean Payton who is going to let him loose on secondaries just like in his rookie year when Payton was the Giants offensive coordinator.

The big question now is: can the Giants win without Shockey?

...oh wait.

-Kobes