Friday Rant

As I look around the world today, I see a whole lot of redonkulousness and have to spew a little bit about some of it here.

First we have OJ back in the headlines after getting together a posse of armed goons and busting in to a hotel room to allegedly steal back some sports paraphanaelia that allegedly belongs rightfully to OJ. I'll believe that when I see the proof. You know, OJ, most of us just call the police when something that is indisputably ours has been stolen from us and you know exactly where the culprits are, in an enclosed room, with the stolen contraband right there with them. I heard a funny quote from a caller on sports radio on Monday night from someone who said "The Niners are 2-0. The Packers are 2-0. The Cowboys are 2-0. And OJ is back in jail. It's like the mid 1990s all over again!" Well said, Jerome from Manhattan.

But that's even not the best part of this story as far as I'm concerned. The part that I love the most is OJ's quote after being arrested and held behind bars without bail while the police sort things out. "I'm O.J. Simpson," the disgraced grid great told The Los Angeles Times yesterday. "How am I going to think that I'm going to rob somebody and get away with it?"

Hmmmmmmm....Now why would OJ ever think he could get away with something like this?

You have gotta love people sometimes. Especially completely out-of-body-no-concept-of-reality loopy psychopaths like OJ Simpson.

And please, if OJ asks any of you readers out there for my address after reading this, just tell them I live in Vegas and respond to the name "poker champ".

OK now let's talk for a minute about another falling former sports star: Isaiah Thomas. Thomas is currently embroiled in a sexual harrassment suit by a former employee of the New York Knicks who claims that Thomas made numerous unwanted sexual advances and comments directed at her, in addition to using a number of racial and sexual epithets and slurs in conversations to her and about her. All this while Thomas has consistently run one of the great sports franchises in America into the ground, making move after move as the GM that failed to pan out, and now recently after taking over as coach and leading the team to yet another dismal, shitty season. The part of this story that I love is this quote from a Newsday article from late Monday / early Tuesday of this week:

"While Thomas stated in the deposition, which took place Dec. 8, 2006, that he didn't direct obscenities at Browne Sanders, he said it would be less offensive for a black man rather than a white man to use such language toward a black woman."

I figure Duggles if nothing else will have a field day with this comment. It refers to the fact that Thomas's accuser has testified that Thomas called her "bitch" and in fact began all his sentences to her with the word. As in "Bitch, I don't care about the fucking fans" and "Bitch I don't care about them white people", etc. But that's ok, according to Thomas, because he's black, and it's acceptable for a black man to repeatedly refer to a black woman as bitch. But if a white man referred to a black woman as bitch repeatedly, Thomas stated in his deposition, "that would clearly violate his own code of conduct."

Hmmmm. I guess after reading that I have just one thing to say to Isaiah Thomas, and I summon all my blackness when I say this: Bitch, you better get your team into the playoffs this year, or bitch you gonna be without a job. Bitch.

While I'm on the topic of sports shittiness, my Philadelphia Eagles shat the bed in a huge way this week on Monday Night Football on ESPN. It is always bad when your team goes on national tv and stinks up the joint like that. One thing is abundantly clear to me now, and this is probably all I'll say about the topic for now, but Donovan McNabb is just not healthy. Period. He had about eight of those we-all-know-you're-injured throws against the hated Redskins, 4 or 5 of them about 5 feet above his intended target, and another 3 or 4 that went straight into the ground nowhere near where any receivers were standing. He seemed to be favoring his front leg from what I saw of the game even when he threw normally and the few times he scrambled a bit, and he blatantly missed wide open receivers on 10- and 15-yard throws including some in the end zone or right near it. McNabb, always one of my favorite players in the NFL, has got to go and go now. That's all there is to it. Like I said before, I don't want him cut or anything necessarily, but we need to get another starter in there right away instead of a half-able DMac. I think we all learned last season how bad we can be with a semi-injured McNabb (1-4 in his last five games last season, plus now 0-2 this year after Miggy's return from leg surgery), and how great we can be as soon as you get a serviceable replacement in there. Now I don't know if this Kevin Kolb dork is the answer in Philadelphia, but while McNabb stays in there in his clearly not healthy state, it's all bad for Philadelphia Eagles fans. The Redskins are still a shit team and they basically played drab football last Monday, don't get me wrong, but this year is starting off All Wrong for the Eagles. God I hate when my NFL team sucks early in the season.

Speaking of the NFL, let's get to this week's picks as I look to the right the ship after an 0-2 debacle last week courtesy of the Bengals' defense and McNabb's injured body parts. This week there is honestly one game that is the single biggest setup line I've ever seen in my entire life. In fact, this line is so goddam stoopid that I had to look it up on like three different sites to see if it is even correct, because if anything it looks to me like the number is right, but the wrong team is favored by that amount. This weekend, the 2-0 Lions are coming in to 0-2 Philadelphia, yes they of the still injured quarterback and the zero offense to speak of. And the zero defense while they're at it. So the undefeated Lions are coming to the Linc to play the winless Eagles, where the Eagles just got embarrassed this past Monday night against the horrid Redskins, and what's the line on the game? Lions favored by how much? 5? 3? Pick'em even? Well, guess what. Somehow the 2-0 Lions are 6.5 point underdogs to the Eagles, totally out of the blue. This is truly the biggest setup line I have ever seen in my entire life. The Lions will almost surely win this game outright, as the matchup of their potent offense against the Eagles embarrassment of a defense should take them well into the 25+ point range, and here they are not only favored to lose to an 0-2 team coming off a shortened week, but they are getting 6.5 points to boot. So here's my thought: clearly, the Eagles are going to cover that 6.5 point spread. Bet the Eagles. I don't know why, I think we are terrible right now with Injuryboy McNabb in there, but one way or the other I say you have to take the Eagles to cover the 6.5 in the dumbestassest line I can ever remember seeing in an NFL game.

For my other pick this week, I like the New York Jets to smush the Miami Dolphins in New Jersey this weekend, so I'm taking them minus the 3 point spread in that one. The Jets have a great coach, a great quarterback coming back in Chad Pennington, and still one of the league's top receivers in Lavernaeus Coles. I'm sure I spelled that name wrong, but whose fault is that, really? Mine? I think not. What kind of name is La-vern-e-us anyways, for a man? Not a good one let me tell you. But I think the Jets bounce back and bounce back nicely this week after two tough losses to top AFC teams in Baltimore and New England. 3 points should be no problem to cover this week.

So to recap, my NFL picks this week are:

1. Philadelphia +6.5 at home over the Lions. Dumbest setup line of the year, it must be a setup.

2. NY Jets -3 over the Dolphins. This one should be a solid Jets win I'm thinking.

One other side item to note: this has been the best season of Major League Baseball in as long as I can remember I think. I can't recall a year with such a good race coming down to the wire in the NL West, NL Central, and the NL and AL East divisions, including two huge potential collapses by the Mets and the Red Sox to now be threatened to lose their divisional leads that both seemed utterly insurmountable for mostly this entire season, including as recently as just a couple weeks ago in each case. In particular, my beloved Phillies have made quite a run at the Mets, as of late Thursday night now just 1.5 games back with I think 9 games to play. The sad thing about all this is -- and you can only really understand what I'm saying here if you've been a lifelong Philadelphia sports fan like I have -- but the real Philly fans already know with 100% certainty how this year's Phillies season ends up shaking out. We'll miss the playoffs, falling just short after making this big run and faking everybody into buying in to the team, into jumping on the bandwagon and really thinking we could sneak into the playoffs as a result. Same as last year, and the same as the year before that. So don't believe the hype about the Phillies making this incredible late playoff push. No way, no how no chance do the Phillies make the playoffs this year. Ask anyone who spent a long portion of their life in Philly, and they'll tell ya. Am I right Al or what?

That's all for today's rant. I busted in 11th place from Thursday night's Riverchasers tournament on full tilt after a great run that ended with me pushing allin on the big blind on a preflop reraise with 44 and getting called by Astin's AK. Hard to complain about that I think, especially since Astin's raise came from the button and double especially since we were 6-handed when it happened, what can you do. On Friday night is the latest Donkament, hosted by Kat, which is the $1 rebuy donxtravanganza at 9pm ET on full tilt (password is "donkarama"), and which as usual I will try to play but I often have issues with the timing on a Friday evening. Otherwise I should be on over the weekend around my usual times, so feel free to stop by and say hello, either on the girly chat or in the poker room chat itself on full tilt. For some reason ftp remains my main online poker stomping ground despite the hideous results I have experienced exclusively there over the past two weeks. Guess that means I choose masochism instead of nihlism, who knows.