My Sick Mind

It was a busy night here at My Sick Headquarters. There were two NFL playoff games and a political debate mixed in with some more Ebola selling, which made for lots of channel surfing and Internet clicking. I'm exhausted. The Redskins continue to disappoint, and now they have the rest of the winter and spring to contemplate their issues. Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh, the home team snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, so those who figured that Jacksonville was the team who could beat the Patriots may have their chance next week. The instant replay has almost ruined football for me. There are too many challenges, and I think that referees lean on the challenge to allow them to make rulings on the field that they figure will either be challenged or not. Would you watch something closely if you knew that it would be replayed on a big screen in the stadium? No. The coaches have the benefit of the replay, and their cohorts in the press level tell them whether or not they should thro...

I'm on this movie jag lately. Tonight, I caught up with one I wanted to see in the theater but missed called " The Astronaut Farmer ." It stars Billy Bob Thornton as a farmer (named Farmer) who, through a series of complicated life events, builds a rocket in his barn with the intent to launch himself into Earth orbit. Does it sound far fetched? Sure it does, but it's more of an allegory about living ones dreams rather than a scientific account of a guy building an Atlas launch vehicle from scrap parts and bootlegged rocket fuel. As a film it is average, but for me being a bit of a NASA geek, having grown up during the space race and all, it's an interesting story. It's preposterous and inaccurate scientifically, but it's still a worthwhile film about family, dreams and belief in yourself that could have been built around a lot of things. This one is about a rocket. If you see it and judge it based on the idea that a guy could build a rocket in his barn, y...

Iowa . Population 2,926,324. Ranked 30th in the United States. New Hampshire . Population 1,235,786. Ranked 41st in the United States. Between the two of them , they will have a huge impact on who are the next candidates for President in a country of 303,619,006 (as of 12/18/2007). 1.4% of the American public is about to make a decision that will affect the rest of us, followed by Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, Florida and Maine. By the time Super Tuesday rolls around (February 8) we will have heard from over half the states, and millions of dollars will have been spent and we will may not be any closer to knowing who is going to run for president than we were yesterday. What will happen is that the candidates without the big funding (i.e. everybody except Edwards, Clinton and Obama) will have dropped out. All that money spent for what, exactly? In a country where we have a pill that can give you a 4-hour boner, wouldn't you figure that we would have come up with a better way t...

Yeah, right. New year - new premieres - no writers - more crap. The writers' strike continues, just in time for mid-season crap replacement shows. Jesus , haven't we had enough of comb-over and his nonsense? American Gladiators is a 10-year old concept brought back from the dead. Another dopey game show with 100 people they only have to pay scale for and I don't know what Million Dollar Battle of the Sexes is, but it strikes me as another ancient concept that will keep my TV off and help lower my electric bill. Thanks, Writers Guild of America! Here are some ideas: Put Leno, Conan and Letterman on in prime time. Show us a high-quality movie with fewer commercial breaks. Run some old Sid Caesar Show of Shows or old Milton Berle stuff. Anything but more of these goofy-ass "reality" shows and tired old game show concepts. I want to see real actors and entertainers. Do I have to think of everything?

It still feels like 2007. Something that you may or may not know about me is that I'm something of a gym rat. From October to March, most of my evenings are spent in our local Emporium of Striated Muscle . I'm there in the summer too, but most of my time is spent on two wheels. I think it's been 26 years since I started and, with the exception of a dislocated left elbow (1988) and a case of pneumonia (2001) it's been pretty much a daily ritual since 1981. I've been to four or five different places along the way, but one thing is a constant: The first week of January is a bitch. Every year it's the same thing. It's resolution season. It doesn't take a government survey or a sociologist to figure it out, it's just that goofy thing called human nature. Every year, no matter where I am the place jams up on January 2 with tons of new faces, all encouraged by some witnessed resolution and feeling destined to make-over their abused bodies between no...

The first day of the year. A bogus holiday if ever there was one. The malls were open, as were movie theaters, restaurants, liquor stores and supermarkets. The cashiers at the supermarket got "holiday pay" but the cashiers at the liquor store (next door) did not. Happy New Year. I figure , it's a holiday mostly because the hungover revelers couldn't get their asses up for work on January 1, so the government figured, "Screw it. Take the day off." I was awakened last night at midnight by the sound of store-bought fireworks from down the street. It continued for 23 minutes, and I found myself wishing that a tree would catch fire so that there would be some real excitement. It disrupted my sleep and did nothing for the cat's heart murmur. He didn't know what day it was. Here in the Philadelphia area , it's the day of the annual Mummers Parade. It started 3 hours late because of rain, and should be over by noon on Saturday. It's an acquired tas...

Dewey: Edith, I am starting to think that you don't believe in me. Edith: I do believe in you. I just know you're going to fail. After I finished telling a co-worker about my latest experience with "Charlie Wilson's War", he told me that I was on "quite a roll" with the movies lately. True, I haven't seen many dogs over the past couple of weeks, but it's easier this time of year, when the studios roll out the Oscar contenders. That's precisely why I hesitated (slightly) in seeing the film I saw tonight, " Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story ." A sign outside the theater said its capacity was "367 patrons," which left us with only 364 more people to fill the place. That's right, after being shut out on Xmas day, I found that New Year's Eve was a perfect time to see a film. Me and two strangers sat through the 5:05pm showing of a film that probably cost the theater more to show than the three of us paid. I'd read so...

I don't pay too much attention to World news. As far as I'm concerned, the peoples of the world can take care of themselves and sometimes, the less we know about them, the better. Regular readers know that I rarely write anything about what goes on outside our borders, mostly because I am not politically worldly and partly because I don't care all that much. As I was driving over to the local art house multi-plex to see " Charlie Wilson's War " early Sunday afternoon, I had a little panic attack. I wondered, "What if this movie totally loses me and I have absolutely no idea what's going on, because I don't pay much attention to these kinds of things?" After all, I was going mostly because it's Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in a film by Mike Nichols, and I'd probably watch paint dry if the three of them were somehow involved. Early in the attack , I reasoned that the movie wouldn't be as popular as it is if it was a sophisticated s...

I'm always looking for the angle. I'm always looking for the swindle or the scam. Deep down, I don't think there are too many people who do things out of the goodness of their hearts - especially when it comes to sports or entertainment. I'm cynical that way. Last night , the Patriots' record-setting game against the Giants was televised on three networks. CBS, NBC and The NFL Network, which is a network by name only. Since The NFL Network is only available to 40% of households, it meant that the biggest event of the season so far would not be viewed by a majority of football fans, so the NFL signed up two real networks to help. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell went on TV last night and told America that the game was on network television "for the fans." He stressed it and said it a few times. He kept repeating it, as though the more he said it, the more he would believe it and - hopefully - the more we would believe it. Mr. Goodell : Did you invent The N...