Saturday, November 24, 2012

The most depressing Thanksgiving commercial ever

Last spring I wrote a post about the most depressing Mother's Day commercial ever.  While this isn't quite as bad as taking Mom to Hooters to celebrate, spending Thanksgiving at The Golden Corral is definitely very high on the list of things I'd like to avoid doing for Holidays.

Also, is that blond kid a boy or a girl?  I'm pretty sure it's a boy, but it's a little creepy how similar his hair is to his mother's; just like how the brother and sister on Parenthood used to look the same.



  

Friday, November 23, 2012

Best of the best from Pats vs Jets

A month ago the Patriots blew a big lead, but managed to squeak by the Jets in OT.  Despite being 4-3, people were very down on the Pats due to their repeated late game struggles.  I wrote that I still liked their chances in part because they were "just 3 play and 4 points away" from being undefeated.  At the time I took some heat on twitter from many who though it was a ridiculous statement to make; but now that New England is 8-3 it's looking a lot more reasonable.

Last night Mark Sanchez gave us one of the most embarrassing moments I have ever seen in the National Football League:


 - A lot has been made of the Patriots scoring 3 touchdowns in 52 seconds, but it was also over a span of just 5 plays, 2 of which were kickoffs.

Edelman for MVP?
 - Julian Edelman has had an insane last couple of games.  Against the Colts he returned 2 punts for a total of 117 yards and a touchdown, caught a TD pass, and nearly scored a 3rd time on a 47 yard run.  Last night he had 2 more touchdowns (a 65 yard catch and a 22 yard fumble return) before getting knocked out of the game by a hit to the head in the 3rd quarter.

 - The Patriots are now 19-0 in the second half of the regular season over the past 3 years.

 - New England has scored 190 points in their last 4 games (45, 37, 59, and 49), the most prolific four game stretch the league has seen in 60 years.

 - Tom Brady has now completed more than 50% of his passes in 50 consecutive games.

    

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Crazy "holiday" flavors of club soda

I love flavored soda waters.  And the technology of it kind of blows me away.  How do they make them without adding any chemicals or sugar or anything?  If you look at the nutritional information on the back, they have nothing.  All zeros.  No ingredients besides "natural flavors."  It's especially impressive now that the varieties are getting totally out of hand.  Check out this picture I took last week at the grocery store of Polar's new assortment of "holiday" flavors:


Amazing.  I tried the eggnog.  It really tastes like eggnog.  Unlike fictional "skinny girl" margaritas, this really is "skinny" eggnog (minus the alcohol obviously).  And while it kind of bothers me that all the Christmas choices were in the store before thanksgiving (is it time for a 55 day advent calendar?), it's not as bad as shelves of pumpkin beer in the liquor store in august.

  

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Awesome Old Song of the Week: "Basket Case" by Green Day

On September 9, 1994 I went to a free Green Day concert outdoors at the Hatch Shell along the Charles River.  The band had just recently blown up over the summer, and the city of Boston was completely unprepared for it.  Forty to fifty thousand more people showed up than expected.

I have a distinct memory of the giant mosh pit (remember "moshing?"  Aka "slam dancing?"  It got banned at my high school dances, but that's another story for another time) in front of the stage.  The crowd became violent and out of control, and the band left for safety reasons after about 4 or 5 songs.  But that was all the hits they had at the time, so I went home happy.  From that day on I have referred to it as "the greatest 20 minute concert I've ever been to."

Here's a really cool youtube description of it from WFNX, the now defunct radio station that helped put on the show.  As for the song, I could have chosen Longview, When I Come Around, or Welcome to Paradise as well, but I think Basket Case was the biggest deal at the time.



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Adios, Darko. I saw this coming...

It looks like Darko Milicic will be leaving the Celtics and heading back to Europe, according to Doc Rivers' quotes from the Dennis and Callahan radio show this morning.  While I think this has little to no effect on the team from a basketball perspective, it's kind of sad from a fan perspective.

It was fun to hope for the reincarnation of one of the biggest draft busts of all time (Darko was picked #2 overall in 2003, right after Lebron, and just before #3 Carmelo Anthony, #4 Chris Bosh, and #5 Dwayne Wade).  I liked having a big funny looking European guy wearing #99 on the end of the bench, it reminded me of Stojko Vrankovic in the early 90's.  Darko also gave us amusing stories about killing people to help the team, and his hatred for Boston traffic.

But most of all, I'm pissed because I saw this coming last week.  While at the game on Saturday the C's were blowing out the Raptors, and Doc had emptied his bench; except for Darko.  This seemed odd to me, and as I peered down at him there, I could tell something was off.  In fact, I even wrote this in an email to some of my colleagues the next day:

"Watching Darko on the bench late in the 4th quarter at the Garden yesterday it looked like he knew there was zero chance he was playing, even though they we're up 20.  He was sitting back with his legs out, almost bored, uninvolved in the game. Not sure what this means, but it's not a good sign."

If only I'd published it then... I also have a feeling there's more to this story than we know right now.

Monday, November 19, 2012

The Tebometer rises, but should it?

In the New York Jets 27-13 victory over St. Louis on Sunday, Tim Tebow completed his one and only pass (although calling it a pass is a bit misleading, it was really just a forwarded lateral).   Amazingly Tebow has now put up a 100% completion rate in each of the last 3 games he has thrown the ball.

However, his "pass" against the Rams netted the Jets -1 yard, so in reality an incompletion would have been better.  Combine that with his two rushes for -5 yards, and it was a pretty unproductive day for Tebow overall; despite raising his career completion rate to 48.1%.

I've always focused on his ineffectiveness as a passer, but maybe it's time to pay attention to his sub par ground game as well.  Over the past 8 weeks Tebow has run the ball 22 times for a grand total of 49 yards; an average of just 2.2 per carry.


Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sporty Oreos

I saw these two new types of Oreos in the grocery store the other day.  I have some comments and questions in no particular order:

The football shaped ones are great.  That's just a winning idea.  But the "Triple Double" I'm not so sure of.  It looks like a lot of hard crunchy cookie to bite through, and I'm also not really sold on wanting both the chocolate and vanilla cream at the same time.

But my main questions is, did Oreo intend to use a basketball reference in their name?  My first instinct was that it absolutely must have been on purpose; especially considering that they were next to each other on the shelf.  But the more I ponder over it, that may just be the work of a sports-minded-logical-thinking stock person.  If the "Triple Double" are meant to be basketball related, why didn't Nabisco make the top of them look like balls as they did with the football cookies?  Or at least put some sort of hoops paraphernalia on the wrapping?  I think this was a great idea, but a huge marketing fail on the part of Oreo.

  

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