Recycled Garbage

It has become a regular occurrence in professional sports-the recycled coach. The Carolina Hurricanes took it up a notch recently when they fired Peter Laviolette to re-hire Paul Maurice.

I have never been more stunned in my life. It's not as if the Hurricanes hired Scotty Bowman, or another well regarded Stanley Cup-winning coach, they hired Paul Maurice. A total bore and a failure. After getting run out of Raleigh in 2003, he shockingly got another job as the head coach in Toronto and again failed. Not only does he have a proven track record of ineptitude, his style bores the fans to tears, so it's not as if an exciting fast-paced brand of hockey is going to arouse interest among casual fans. It arouses tears, frustration and sleep.

Why did the Hurricanes hire him, you ask? Because he is a good friend of the GM, Jim Rutherford. That's a cute story. Unfortunately, you have a business and franchise to run. This isn't your grandson's recreational soccer team. This is a professional franchise. I find this move wholly unforgivable. After digesting this move for over a week, the only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that the Hurricanes want to move. Attendance has been lagging due to the economy, and this move will guarantee even more people will stay home. The losing will continue, and the style of play has become more unwatchable. There is no reason to go to the RBC Center anymore to support a franchise who values a personal friendship between the owner and GM with a man who has tried and failed at coaching much more than it's relationships with the city and fans, and it's duty to put an honorable product on the ice.

Jim Rutherford has made many moves which have benefited the Hurricanes greatly over the years, but this weird move trumps them all. It's time for you to be fired, Jim, your friendship with Raleigh is over. Unfortunately, Jim's friendship with the owner, Peter Karmanos is just as strong, so this is not going to happen. Go ahead and move the Hurricanes to Winnipeg. The strong friendship bond between the owner-GM-coach has superseded common sense, and has survived the loss of millions of dollars over the years. Canadian winters are no match for that.

90210-Episode 10 Summary

Brothers in Arms

One good tactic of 90210 is that they seem to immediately pick up where they left off last week with no time elapsing. Unlike me, who took over 3 weeks to finish this summary. The mysterious lost son of Principal Dad is introduced after meeting Annie and Naomi last week. Dixon seems to be troubled by this.

Unfortunately for him, I don't care, so let's move on.

Congratulations, Naomi-I now love you more than Adrianna. You have Navid to thank for that.

Also, since when do high school guidance counselors feel like it's their job to intervene in normal friendships? I guess now, because Kelly Taylor seems to think her job entails forcing Annie and Naomi to be friends. Not likely.

Annie can now add stale jokes to her repertoire in addition to terrible acting. She spends her time putting down Naomi with awful jokes and uninteresting drama.

Principal Dad is obsessed with his new found son, and is ignoring Dixon. This spells trouble, as Dad somehow took every job the unlikeable Mr. Mathews had, and is now the lacrosse coach.

How does this happen?

Kelly Taylor attempts to rekindle her friendship with Brenda Walsh for some reason, which ends with an awesome rejection. She deserved that. Later, after being hospitalized, they reconcile. Kill me.

Back to the good stuff-Principal Dad, now the lacrosse coach, terribly, TERRIBLY, pumps up the team for the big SoCal Regional Final against Bel Air. The team is hyped and starts the "Beat Bel Air" chant. I hope they lose 18-0. The game begins, but Dixon seems off. He is instructed to hit Bel Air at "the top of the triangle", because their middies did stuff to them last time inside this shape or something. However, Dixon is preoccupied due to Principal Dad being head over heels in love with his new found son. Dixon ain't having that, and shows this by pouting and lack of effort. Well played. The game plays out with a hard-rockin' soundtrack, and with Dixon refusing to pass he ball. West Bev trails 6-4 when Principal Dad demands the team not panic. Good coaching. He takes Dixon out after another few minutes of lackluster effort, to which Dixon responds "screw you". How about screw you, Dixon? You are costing your team the chance to advance further in this vague state tournament. The game ends, with no winner declared, and Dad heads into the locker room to yell at Dixon. He acts like a baby, but when Dad apologizes for giving Real Son all the attention, they make up.

Oh, wait-the game isn't over. I guess that was halftime. A 45 minute long halftime, where no one was allowed in the locker room except the coach and his adopted son. The score is knotted at 12! Huge drama! 10 seconds left, and Ethan slowly does a 180 spin move and scores at the buzzer to win it. Good for them-on to the next round! Dixon and Real Son make up and make plans to hang out together. Awwww.

The family then invites Real Son to live with them for awhile, but he makes a private phone call, and it appears everything is not as it seems. Looks like we have a fraud on our hands.

How will this play out? We'll have to wait until January 6th when the series returns. Until then...

All Apologies

Dear Russell Wilson-

I sincerely apologize for my earlier blog about your lack of talent, and for all of my inner hatred that was directed towards you from September through October. I was wrong. You have blossomed into a great quarterback and a valiant leader. I believe I ranked you # 328 out of 330 FBS QB's back in September, but you have proven to be more like #24. But you're #1 in my heart. The entire football program is headed towards a very good place in the near future, and I will look forward to seeing you help lead them to that place. The pride I have in NC State football has rarely been stronger, and the light at the end of the tunnel looks bright. Congratulations on being named quarterback on the All-ACC 1st team, and please accept my humble apology.

Best of luck in the upcoming bowl game, 2009, and beyond.

Today's "Mayne" Complaint

"Mayne Street", starring Kenny Mayne debuts this week. Thankfully, I believe it is in the form of webisodes, so I will not accidently become exposed to it while flipping my TV to ESPN. For those of you unaware, Kenny Mayne is a sportscaster. A really, really unfunny one.

America thought this guy was hilarious during a series of commercials for ESPN a few years back, which ultimately led to this web series. America was wrong, but at least network executives could see right through this hack and not offer him a TV deal.

He also single-handedly ruined Sunday NFL Countdown with his awful, unfunny segments where he would clown around with NFL players. This was always followed by uproarious laughter from Chris Berman and the studio guys, making matters even worse.

My hatred of Kenny came to a head during this year's "Celebrity" softball game during MLB all-star week. I know what you're thinking, "hey Lob, why are you watching that horrible event"? If you remember, my hobby is making myself angry, and this game had it all- Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Mike + Mike, and Kenny Mayne, among others. I could talk about how contrived and maddening this game was all day, but let's focus on Kenny. For starters, he was the manager of one of the teams, and walked around like he was Mr. Big Shot. Pardon me, Kenny-I'm not sure where your ego comes from, but you are not funny, no one thinks you're clever, and 80% of the people on your team have NO IDEA who you are. The fans in the stands did NOT come to see you, so take it down a notch.

He also refused to take himself out of the game. Everyone else only got to play an inning or two, but Mr. Mayne thought he was too important in this totally meaningless event to sit himself. Fans in the stadium only caught brief glimpses of actual stars like Chris Rock, so this clown could play the whole game. Also, he CONSTANTLY talked to his infielders while in the outfield. He screamed lame jokes towards Billy Crystal during play, because he was microphoned, and wanted to hear himself talk while pretending to be good friends with actual celebrities. The other players could not have cared less.

If you love America, Kenny, do us all a favor and go away. You are among the most annoying human beings on Earth. No one likes you. I wish being unappealing was a crime. You would spend the rest of your life behind bars and I could spend the rest of my life without you.

90210-Episode 9 Summary

Is That All You Got, Kansas?

Much like the state of Kansas itself, a particularly boring episode greets us this week. No booze, no drugs, nothing.

Adrianna continues her unforgivable romance with Navid, Naomi plots and executes a devious plan to out Ethan and Annie. And speaking of Annie, she again fails miserably at acting in a particularly bad scene. I am starting to warm up to Naomi. Maybe it wasn't such a stretch that the entire cast suddenly wanted to befriend her. I want to be her friend now, too. I especially appreciate her calling Annie "Kansas". Love it.

The one good thing from this episode is the apparent firing of Mr. Matthews. His suspension somehow turned permanent, and he's off to find himself. He should come to my house-I'll tell him who he is.

Yep, that's all I got this week, Kansas. If 90210 won't try, I won't, either.

Although next week brings the return of the once heavily-hyped lacrosse team. That should be a doozy.

Duke vs. NC State: Swapping Personalities

This Saturday, Duke and NC State will meet on the gridiron. Big deal, right? Well, due to the split of the ACC into divisions, and a scheduling quirk, these former rivals have not played football since 2003. Five long years have passed, and many things have changed. Let's take a trip back in time, shall we?

The world was a different place in 2003. Gulf War II began in March. Martha Stewart was sent to prison that June. And the largest hailstone ever recorded was found in Nebraska. America was both tense and whimsical at the same time.

Duke football was never worse entering the 2003 season. The previous 3 seasons brought records of 0-11, 0-11, and 2-10. Although improved in 2003, with a final record of 4-8, Duke was the laughingstock of college football.

NC State, however, had reached their pinnacle the prior season with an 11-3 record, including a victory over an albeit weak Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. Chuck Amato strutted around as the King of Raleigh. Wolfpack Nation started to dream of BCS bowls. Winning ACC championships seemed mere footsteps away.

Liitle did they know when they met at Wallace Wade in late October 2003, that not only would they not meet again for 5 years, but their programs were about to switch identities. NC State walked away with a 7 point victory that day, but emerged as the new face of embarrassingly bad college football programs. After that game, State would go on to lose 2 of their last 4 games in 2003. And despite middling around the 7-5/6-6 mark for a couple of years, they hit rock-bottom with a 3-9 record in 2006.

So, they meet again tommorrow afternoon in Durham. Duke is having their best season in many, many years. NC State is horrendous. Duke is on the upswing. Once considered an automatic conference win for anyone who played them, Duke is now respectable. NC State fans complained up and down that it would be too long until they played again. In fact, there was talk of scheduling a "non-conference" game with Duke just to keep the rivalry going. Although truthfully, "rivalry" really meant "extra win". Times have certainly changed. Now NC State is America's laughingstock, and Duke is the up-and-coming stalwart. And no one would have predicted that in 2003.

90210-Episode 8 Summary

1 Shot of Happy, 2 Shots of Suck

Principal Dad gets us started this week by revealing to Annie and Dixon that he has another son via a long ago fling with Naomi's Mom.

Annie and Dixon seem stunned, and discuss the issue further in the West Beverly parking lot. They express their disappointment in their father's hypocrisy. He is a hypocrite, they determine, because while telling Annie and Dixon they could not have sex, Dad was doing that exact thing himself in high school. These idiots fail to mention that they have attempted to have sex several times, so they disregarded their father's advice anyway. Who's the hypocrite now, Annie?

Looks like Adrianna is out of rehab. Must be a great facility, as she spent 5 days there, including the time she left to attend the homecoming dance. She is totally clean. Unfortunately, Buzzkill Navid is on the scene. He gives her a bag of jellybeans. She expresses an intense love for the buttered popcorn ones, to which Buzzkill exclaims, "ewwww". Those are my favorite jellybeans, too, Adrianna. We should talk.

This is followed by the single worst attempt at acting in history. Annie has made plans to see Naomi's ex after school, but then Naomi approaches her to ask what she's doing. Instead of acting cool, she awfully stutters and stammers to avoid the question. You have to see this scene to believe it. It is that terrible. Naomi doesn't seem suspicious somehow, but any normal human with an IQ above 13 would immediately know something was up based on Annie's acting. Dear 90210 producers, please recast this role. Thank you.

Buzzkill Navid is back with another bag of jellybeans for Adrianna. He has sorted out the beans, giving Adrianna only the popcorn ones. What a loser. Don't fall into his trap. You are all I have on this show. He then stalks her by waiting for her at her meeting. He then claims that she "owes him", so she agrees to go with him to eat.

Silver is having a party with her new best friends, Annie and Naomi. She hated Naomi until last week, but now they are having shots together. These three continue to take shots, and quickly become drunk. Adrianna then appears, but since she is in recovery, can only drink water as they play "I Never". It is revealed during this game that Adrianna has never been in love. Awww.

Unfortunately, no one says "I've never been an awful actress". Annie would have died from alcohol poisoning. The party quickly becomes interesting, as it is crashed by the whole school.

Even Buzzkill Navid is in the house. He creepily emerges from upstairs, and basically demands that Adrianna have sex with him. Inexplicably, she agrees, and walks upstairs with him. Being sober has apparently destroyed her judgement.  While watching a documentary on the loggerhead turtle(???), they start to make out. Navid declines sex, however, as he feels used or something. That was a close call. Glad to know I can add "moron" to creep, buzzkill, and loser on his list of descriptors. 

Mr. Matthews shows up to give his narc girlfriend a ride home. He can't resist making out with her in the driveway, so long lost student/lacrosse player George catches them in the act. 

Principal Dad also arrives, opens the door, demands everyone leave the party, and they comply. I have to say, Beverly Hills gives their high school principal a lot of authority. He is allowed to dole out plea bargains, host illegal drug raids, and trespass to break up whatever party he wants. He has more power than the police chief and the FBI. Interesting to note.

While in detention, George begins to blackmail Mr. Matthews. He demands to be put back onto the lacrosse team, and wants an A in the class. After getting notified, Principal Dad then suspends Mr. Matthews. Finally. He has acted inappropriately dozens of times, and for once, he has to pay for it. This was the best news I've heard in several years. Thank you, Principal Dad. Thank you. Unfortunately, this is followed by the worst news I've heard in a decade-Adrianna has inexplicably fallen for Buzzkill. Not in a million years would this happen in real life, but anything goes here at West Beverly. Next week brings the return of Kelly Taylor with news that Dylan McKay's facial features have remained the same. Excellent news there.