For the New Year, I will make the following resolutions. Please note that in no way am I to be held to my word on any of these.
To give up. Once I become invested emotionally in something, I almost never stop following it. Even when the quality of the thing in question drops off completely, I still feel like I've invested too much to quit. This time, when something like, say "Heroes," sucks for two straight years, perhaps I'll find the fortitude to just quit it. "24," you're on the clock.
Not drink so many Cokes. This is my main resolution every year, I see no reason not to pretend to try it again. This one should last at least 10-15 minutes.
No heroin. This is an easy one. I don't use it now, so this one will be splashy, but easy to keep. I plan to lose on the Cokes one, so I need one that's easy to handle to keep my average up.
Find a new sitcom. I like to use the DVR to record sitcoms I might not have paid attention to the first time. So far I've been through NewsRadio, King Of Queens, Cheers, Just Shoot Me, and Frasier twice. Anybody got a suggestion?
Get in shape. I will attempt to begin working out. Barring this, I will attempt to begin watching the "Exercise Channel".
Clean it up. I will try to hold my profanity to a minimum, unless I am driving, at work, or at home.
Career path. I will make good on my promise to go back to school and finish my athletic management degree, so I can achieve my lifelong goal of becoming a professional wrestling referee.
Lighten up. I will try not to be so obscure in my pop-culture references. That's as as manipulative as Jason Bateman in "It's Your Move".
Eat healthier. I will never again eat the Burger King Omelet Sandwich for breakfast, which contains 8 eggs, 11 sausages, 2 pounds of bacon, 7 kinds of cheese, butter, chocolate, and cigarettes. It's just too much to even be thought of as a guilty pleasure. It's like porn for your mouth. As I ate it, I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears.
Honestly, if Michael decides not to take part, can one person in a thousand actually recognize the remaining members of the Jackson 5?
If you ask an average person on the street to name the Jackson 5, and they'll mention Michael, Jermaine, Janet, LaToya, Reggie, Jesse, Samuel L., Bo, and Stonewall.
If you go to see Michael Jackson in concert and his brothers also happen to be there, which part of the show do you think will be more enjoyable?
"Oh, it's time for Jermaine's solo set. Let's go get a t-shirt, or a soda, or anything else to give us a brief respite from Jermaine. Don't make me listen to anything past a chorus of that 'do what you do when you did what you did to me' song."
Let's face it. Michael could be standing on stage with the guys from Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You" video, and it would be as good as a Jackson 5 reunion.
If Michael wants a backing band, he could tour with Hanson, The Time, or Ready for the World and I don't think it would hurt his ticket sales.
Romo Collapses In Shower, Dallas Cowboys Collapse Everywhere Else
In a tremendous act of metaphor, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo collapsed in the shower after the Cowboys lost 44-6 to Philadelphia in a game that put the winner into the playoffs.
Do or die? Didn't, and dead.
My friend Kelly has a theory about Tony Romo. Since Kelly is a hilarious guy who refuses to get a blog, I'll hereby steal it for myself. Romo is the modern day Patrick Ewing. He posts great numbers in the regular season, but vanishes in the playoffs.
The bigger the game, the smaller the performance. In Romo's first playoff game, he fumbled a field goal snap that would have won the game. In his second, he led the #1 seed to a loss to a wild card team. This time in an elimination game, he took a embarrassing beating of prison-roommate proportions. The way things are progressing, he might start his next playoff game by killing a peanut vendor with an errant throw.
The loss leaves the Cowboys in a bad situation. Two days after Jerry Jones emphatically said that Wade Phillips would be back next season, Wade is now the least popular man in Dallas history not to be killed by Jack Ruby.
After I had to sit through every single moment of the debacle, I came up with a few tips for the Cowboys to not make the next loss quite so crushing.
To begin with, no more hats. Tony Romo just lost the latest edition of the biggest game of his life, and he shows up for the interview looking like he just won the 1937 US Open. You're an NFL quarterback, not a British newspaper delivery boy in a Broadway musical.
Speaking of the offense, someone needs to sit down with Roy Williams and make sure he's not still using his Detroit Lions playbook. A week after complaining about not getting the ball, he wasn't even close on one of Romo's interceptions and dropped another ball that hit him square in the hands. The Cowboys gave up three draft picks for Williams, and he responds by catching a whopping two balls for four yards.
Let's put that in perspective. Turn around right now and notice where the nearest person is to you in the office.
That's it, folks. That's four yards, the sum total of Roy Williams statistics. Kenny Stabler used to gain more ground than that on a fumble.
If you're going to keep him, give Wade Phillips a headset. Even if it's not plugged into anything, just put something on his head. He just has that "nobody's listening to me" look about him without one. Everyone else is talking about the game, and he's the old uncle at the family reunion wandering around trying to remember the rest of his story.
And finally, at this point Pacman Jones could be replaced with a dummy (tackling, ventriloquist, or blow-up), and it would probably help. Jones pulled off the rare trifecta with less than a minute to go in the first half. He got beaten on a play, got flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, then after Philadelphia scored he fumbled the kickoff and gave them a field goal. The best thing for all involved would have been for him to punch a stripper on the way to locker room and been suspended for the second half.
Even if you've already seen it, CNN has a new angle shot of the nutball journalist throwing his shoes at President Bush. Check it out.
I'm not much for politics, but I have to give him credit. Look at the moves on the man! He gives the dodge and weave, and never stops smiling. It's like he shows up for work every morning ready and waiting for that one day when an impromptu dodgeball game will break out.
And how about those Secret Service guys? Boy, that's a crack team of professional bodyguards, eh? While these guys are over in the corner texting their girlfriends, this guy stands up, starts yelling, and has time to take off and hurl not one, but both shoes at the President before anybody notices that somebody's flinging sandals.
It's a good thing Bush moves like a dancer up there. His protection isn't exactly Kevin Costner darting into the packed nightclub to carry Whitney out of harms way.
It seems like dogfighter and alleged human being Michael Vick will be getting out of jail soon, thus continuing his descent into his own personal "The Last Boy Scout" movie.
According to the Sporting News, Michael Vick's bankruptcy papers claim he has assets of sixteen million against debts of more than twenty million. Rick Reilly has a great breakdown of some of his expenses at ESPN.com. Among his family-related financial problems are $3500 dollars in support to his son and the boy's mother, $3600 in a mortgage and a Range Rover for his wife and kids, and his mom's $4700 mortgage and more than two thousand dollars in car payments for her Escalade and Cadillac XLR.
I know everyone wants to take care of their family once they hit it big, but I have a question. Vick is in federal prison and facing bankruptcy, which means he's facing unspeakable horrors from both felons and lawyers and I'm not even sure which would be worse.
Would it be too much for his mom to get rid of one of the cars? From his filings, it appears he's already bought every man, woman, and child in his family a car. What does his mom need with two?
Seriously mom, I know your son made it big and promised to take care of you, and then he went out and bought you a bunch of stuff on credit. It might be time to take one for the team and put one of those cars on EBay. I mean, it's not like he's asking mom to set up a bake sale, or to have a raffle. Just pick a vehicle and stick with it.
This week on the Friday PopCast, I try something new. I met a girl this week with a name so comedic and unexpected, merely telling you about it wasn't enough. This week, not only can you download the PopCast, you can also check out the video feed of it, complete with proof of the funniest name ever.
More discussion and sarcasm available on the PopCast, as always, now available in audio and video formats.
For the New Year, I will make the following resolutions. Please note that in no way am I to be held to my word on any of these.
