Monthly Archives: September 2007

2007 Fall TV Season

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One of the things that is always fun to do is to figure out what shows I’m going to try out as some of my favorites are inevitably canceled (Studio 60) or put on hold until February (Lost). I’m excited for fall TV because How I Met Your Mother did not get canceled as it was reported it might. Overall, though, the fall TV season isn’t looking all that promising. There aren’t a ton of shows that I’m clamoring to see, but a couple have caught my eye and I’ll take a look at them.

Bionic Woman

Image courtesy of NBC

Ever since we lost Alias, Alli and I have been a bit morose. That filled a certain void that we didn’t want to fill with 24. NBC has been promoting the heck out of Bionic Woman, which was helmed by one of the co-creators of the new Battlestar Gallactica. I haven’t watched much Gallactica, but the idea of a super-awesome bionic woman is intriguing and I’m going to give it a shot.

Carpoolers

Jerry “Mr. Rebecca Romjin” O’Connell stars in what looks like a funny look at the daily commute to work. I’ve been pretty patient with ‘Til Death (which turned out to be better toward the end of the season than it started out), but I don’t know how much patience I’ll have for this show. It looks funny though. There aren’t a lot of sitcoms out there that get into dude relationships all that much. This could be funny.

Big Shots

Image courtesy of ABC

Touted as “Sex and the City for Dudes” (isn’t that what Entourage is?), this show brings back Dylan McDermott from The Practice and pairs him with Michael Vartan, formerly Michael Vaughn on the aforementioned Alias. Vartan, McDermott and two other guys (that look familiar but I can’t place them) play best friends and powerful businessmen at the top of their game, but somehow hampered by the women in their life. This has the potential to be a good show based on the actors it contains, but shows that are heavily geared towards dudes (see Carpoolers above) are traditionally canceled by mid-season.

Samantha Who?

Christina Applegate is a good TV actress. Most famous for portraying Kelly Bundy on Married With Children, she’s managed a pretty good career. Her portrayal of Rachel Green’s even brattier sister Amy on Friends was terrific (she won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in 2003). Even her pretty terrible show, Jesse, managed 42 episodes. Samantha Who? sounds like a good show in concept. Applegate plays the main character who wakes up from a coma to find that she doesn’t remember a thing from her former life. She eventually discovers that she wasn’t a nice person at all and goes to make good on her previous mistakes. Think of it as a spin on My Name is Earl.

Chuck

Image courtesy of NBC

I don’t know a lot about this show, but the previews I’ve seen for it make it look kind of funny. Chuck accidentally becomes a government agent. That’s about all I know. Sounds good. I’ll give it a shot.

There are also some new shows that I don’t have any interest in at all, particularly Back to You (starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton on Fox) and Cavemen (Prediction: the idiot that green-lighted this show will be fired by the second show).

What shows are you excited for this fall?

The Priest Holmes Enigma

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One of the most surprising moments of a pretty eventful Chiefs off-season was the night-before-training-camp announcement that Priest Holmes would be showing up at camp and attempting a comeback.

For 3 years, there wasn’t a running back in Kansas City who has ever been more beloved than Priest Holmes. He ran hard, broke tackles and scored a record 27 touchdowns in 2003. Everyone love Priest Holmes, particularly his coach, Dick Vermeil, who seemed to get choked up every time his name was even mentioned.

Just under 2 years ago, Holmes was sidelined in a game against the San Diego Chargers when he was tackled in the backfield by roid-head Shawne Merriman (P.S. Note to Nike…couldn’t you choose someone classier than this “lights out” clown?). Holmes went down with a neck injury and there was pretty universal speculation that Holmes would never play football again.

So when he returned this season, it was a pretty big surprise. Now, granted, he didn’t show up in “football shape”, but he showed up, which is more than can be said for the Chiefs starting running back, Larry Johnson. Holmes came to camp, started working out by himself, and tried to get healthy enough to be taken off of the Physically-Unable-to-Perform (PUP) List so he could start practicing with his teammates. We know all this because we have HBO’s Hard Knocks to tell us what was happening in River Falls on a day-to-day basis.

What we don’t know is where was Priest Holmes for the previous 22 months?

I was checking ESPN.com this afternoon – trying to take a break from looking at dump trucks – and I saw this article that was written by Elizabeth Merrill. I was drawn to it for a couple of reasons besides the obvious one (it was about the Chiefs) – it was featured in the premium space of ESPN.com’s front page and when I clicked it, it took me almost completely out of the ESPN site altogether and the whole article was set on a foreboding black background.

It’s an interesting article and it certainly starts to wipe some of the dust off of the mystery of Priest’s disappearance and sudden comeback attempt, but what the article proves more than anything is that it is still possible to keep the public out of your life. Very few people are certain as to what Priest has been up to for the past couple years. And they aren’t really talking.

Striving for Mediocrity

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Perhaps that should be the 2007 slogan for the Kansas City Chiefs – Striving for Mediocrity.

Tonight the Chiefs announced that they were cutting their 5th-round-drafted kicker, Justin Medlock. While it is obvious that Medlock was a nightmare. He underperformed in the pre-season, missing kick after kick and missed his first field goal attempt – a short chip shot – in the Chiefs embarrassing 20-3 loss to Houston on Sunday.

As much as I want to win right now, this move brings to light some serious concerns that I’ve expressed since last year and before this season started. Herm Edwards is a bad coach. His clock-management at the end of the first half and the fact that Larry Johnson only had 10 carries in the game were only examples of his bad game planning and leadership.

Even more heinous than the shortcomings of our head coach, however, are the shortcomings of our general manager for the past 18 years, Carl Peterson. Peterson has continually disappointed the fans of Kansas City with his absolutely horrible draft choices and his constant price-gouging in one of the smallest, but most profitable markets in the NFL. Medlock is the latest in a series of bad decisions that have resulted in the travesty that is the 2007 Kansas City Chiefs.

Now, Peterson is trying to cover his backside by firing Medlock, the kicker he took from his alma mater instead of the kicker at the top of EVERYONE’S draft boards, Colorado Buffalo Mason Crosby, and replacing him with a guy named Dave Rayner. Rayner was last the kicker in Green Bay and was then cut this year when he was beat out for the Packers kicking job by none other than the aforementioned Crosby.

I don’t see how this is an upgrade. While there’s no doubt that Medlock’s been a nightmare up until now – Rayner doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. This is a guy who is 26-36 in his 2-year career. That’s almost 3 misses every 10 attempts. I just don’t see the point of abandoning a kicker after one game, especially a rookie. Peterson’s been wrong about a lot of stuff in his career and this is just one more thing in a long line. Maybe one time we’ll actually hear him say it.

Yeah right.

The Cowboy Boot Carnival

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Did you know…

…Olathe, KS, my city of residence, is where the cowboy boot was invented?

To celebrate, Olathe throws an annual festival called Old Settler’s Day. It’s a crazy time for the city, culminating in a 3-hour long parade. Organizations and businesses from around the city have booths and spaces where they either peddle their wares or promote their organizations.

Our church, the Olathe Community of Christ, has had a booth there since the 1950′s, the early days of the congregation. The festival started in 1898, but I can find very little information about what it signifies. I’m going to go with the invention of the cowboy boot.

Saturday was my shift at the booth. Me, B, D, J and J arrived around 11:45 and were quickly trained by the crew before us, helping them to navigate the lunch rush. Around 1:30 PM, the parade ended and the lunch rush became chaos. One member of our church came up with the concept of a foot-long brat which proved to be incredibly popular at the festival. We had many workers from other booths coming because they’d heard of our brats.

Working with my friends was a lot of fun. Jason and I manned the front of the booth and interacted with all the folks purchasing food which Darin and Bryan fulfilled orders and Jeff worked the grill. Despite a couple of minor setbacks when we ran out of certain items, it went really well and we made an awful lot of money for the church while having a lot of fun in the meantime.

Still, a festival is still a festival. A carnival is a carnival. And a carnival in Olathe…well, let’s just say that the residents should not be so quick to put themselves on the same level as other Johnson County residents quite so fast. Olathe is still very much a farm town and Old Settler’s is a great example of it.

Not Exactly a Fantasy Roster

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Tonight marks the start of the Fantasy Football…errr…I mean FOOTBALL season. My team is OK, but not great. A lot will depend on the results of the season (as it always does), but it is about standard for having the 7th pick in a 12-man draft. We’ll see how it pans out, but here’s my roster (starters are in bold):

QBs:
Drew Brees, New Orleans
Brett Favre, Green Bay

WRs:
Jerrico Cotchery, New York Jets
Marques Colston, New Orleans
Dennis Northcutt, Jacksonville
Joe Horn, Atlanta

RBs:
Shaun Alexander, Seattle (My #1 Pick)
Carnell “Cadillac” Williams, Tampa Bay
Michael Turner, San Diego
Lamont Jordan, Oakland

TEs:
Tony Gonzalez, Kansas City
Desmond Clark, Chicago

K:
John Kasay, Carolina

We’ll see how the season turns out. I picked up Turner on the off chance that LaDanian Tomlinson gets injured. While it took everything in my power to pick up Jordan because I hate Oakland so much. My receivers suck pretty bad. I’m quite aware of that. But Brees is going to put up big numbers. I always said that San Diego made a mistake getting rid of him for Rivers. Brees is a top tier quarterback, undersized but undervalued – all the guy does is win. And pass for lots of yards and touchdowns

Which is really what fantasy season is all about.

Roger Federer

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Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player in history. It’s not even a question.

There are many who would be in the argument – Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, Andre Agassi – but not one of them was as complete a player as the 26-year-old Swiss. It is true that he has never won the French Open – I suppose everyone should be afforded one weakness. But even then, Federer has 6 titles on clay courts and just hasn’t seemed to get over the hump on that one major championship (mostly due to the fact that Rafael Nadal has owned him at Roland Garros). I expect that he will win either next year or the year after that.

Watching Roger Federer play tennis is what I imagine it would have been like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. His precision in every aspect of the game was exemplified tonight in his highly anticipated match with Andy Roddick.

As much as you’d like to see Roddick pull an upset at home in New York, you could tell tonight that even on his best, he couldn’t hang. One of the most telling moments of the night was during the second set tiebreak and Federer had Set Point and the serve at 6-5. Roddick was fired up and knew that if he could win the point, he might have a chance. The crowd sensed it as well and got quite loud inside of Arthur Ashe Stadium. But just as quickly as they started yelling, they were silenced as Federer served a laser ace straight down the middle line and directly into Roddick’s heart. That was Roddick’s second-straight close-but-no-cigar set of the evening and you saw in his eyes that he was virtually done. After two closely fought sets in which Roddick gave his best and lost, he folded and was quickly dismissed in the third set 6-2.

I like Andy Roddick. I like his intensity, but his game just isn’t good enough. While you could tell that Roddick was giving his all through the whole match, it seemed easy for Federer to keep pace; he just paced himself, hit precision shots, and displayed why he has been the #1 player in the world since February 2, 2004. The man is unstoppable on the court.

Apple Special Event

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Apple had a special event today to announce the new versions of all 3 of its somewhat popular iPod (shuffle, nano, video). Apple has almost always impressed with these events, releasing newer, better versions of the world’s most popular MP3 player.

Today, I’m not so sure.

There wasn’t much of an update to the shuffle…a color refresh and an additional (Product) RED version. Ho hum.

Then they went and updated the world’s most popular MP3-player, the iPod nano. The new nano throws away its old skinny form factor for something more squat in order to provide it with a screen large enough for video.

the new Apple ipod nano

I’m not sure how I feel about it. The form looks strange compared to the sleekness of predecessors dating back to the iPod mini. However, they pushed up the battery life to 24 hours for audio and 5 hours for video, which is quite impressive. The fact that they added these enhancements (and increased the sizes from 2GB and 4GB to 4GB and 8GB) while managing to keep the price the same ($149 for the 4GB and $199 for the 8GB) is awesome. You can now have a video iPod for less than $200. That’s amazing.

Obviously Apple couldn’t do anything without updating the standard iPod, which they are now calling the iPod Classic. They increased the size on it and added metal enclosures as well, pushing the smaller models to 80GB for $249 and 160GB for $349. Consider this: when I got my first iPod, the original 20GB version, it cost $500. You can now get 8 times the storage for $150 LESS. And battery life is now 40 hours for audio and 7 hours for video.

And the reason for the name change? A new iPod – the iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone without the phone capability. This is the Big One. There is now finally an iPod with a touchscreen, widescreen capability and Freaking. Wi-Fi. That’s right. This is exactly an iPhone without the phone. Very VERY cool. I would have liked to see it in larger sizes than 8GB ($299) and 16GB ($399) – videos take up lots of space, both on hard drives and on iPods. Very cool that they added a Wi-Fi version of the iTunes store so you can buy stuff on the fly now and it syncs to your computer.

iPod Touch and iPhone

There is a feature where if you are at Starbucks and you are listening to a song, you can buy it. I don’t know why he saved it for last…pretty underwhelming.

No wait…they dropped the price on the iPhone. Only one model. $200 less. 8GB for $399. Morons who bought early.

It’s a good day to be an iPod fan and just another example of why Apple should be responsible for ALL hardware design. I bet NBC is kicking themselves now.

So what do you think? Do you want one? Are you upset about a recent purchase? Sound off.

Special thanks to Engadget for their live blog of the event.

QB Shuffle

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In his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback column, Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King states:

I think the most logical team to sign Leftwich is Kansas City. Logical, and wrong, evidently. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the new backup quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs … from Coastal Carolina, Tyler Thigpen.

As a personnel man from an NFC team told me Sunday night: “There is only one team in the NFL that should have signed Leftwich — Kansas City. And they sign Tyler Thigpen? With Damon Huard and Brodie Croyle as their quarterbacks? It’s a clear sign to me they have no intention of doing anything this year, except get ready for 2008.”

I can’t disagree with this. When I saw that the Jaguars were going to release Leftwich, the first thing I thought of was, “I wonder if the Chiefs will go after him.” Now I imagine that there will be a hefty price tag on that guy, but what I can’t figure out is why the Chiefs would sign Tyler Thigpen instead of a guy who is a proven commodity in the NFL.

Go figure. More evidence that the inmates are running the asylum at 1 Arrowhead Drive.