"A New Dawn"...?

Certainly a historic victory for President-elect Barack Obama. The picture (and this article http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12562373) to the left summarizes how I feel about the whole thing. I'm certainly encouraged by the spirit of the American people. On election day, just the fact that people were talking about it and excited says a lot, regardless of which candidate or set of ideals we individually prefer. Now that two years of campaign ads, speeches, fundraisers, debates, town hall meetings and rallies are over with, the real challenges begin for the man set to be our 44th President. I sincerely hope that Barack can live up to the hype. Our country needs most of what he represents. The big question is whether he can deliver on those "great expectations". His victory will hopefully (but most likely not) put an end to the race issue in this country. His message of change is welcome, not because the idea of change is something new, but mostly because our country, like anything else, can always be changed and improved. I just hope he follows through on his promises (politicians rarely do) and makes this country a better place both domestically and abroad. His message was hope and that's certainly what I'm doing now. I hope he's everything he's cracked up to be. As much as I admire what he claims to represent and his historic victory on Tuesday, I fear he's not. I still don't agree with most of his policies, but that's a whole 'nother story. If he's not like every other politician and can actually live up to his enormous promise (without implementing some of his disastrous domestic policies) and lead this country in a new and positive direction, I'm all for it. As an American, like it or not, he will be my President come January 20th, so let's all understand that and make the best of it. Let's just hope he makes the best of his unprecedented opportunity. Time will tell...

NBA

For those of you that may have missed it, the NBA season is underway and my Phoenix Suns are off to an impressive 4-1 start, with that one loss coming to the New Orleans Hornets, led by stud point guard Chris Paul. Considering the Hornets are a top 3 Western Conference team, the game was played the night after the Suns played the Spurs on the road and it was the 2nd game of the year under new coach Terry Porter, who has an entirely different system and coaching method than former Suns and now NY Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, I'm ok with the Suns losing that game. Before the season, the Suns had numerous doubters across the country questioning their merits. As of this moment, the Suns are looking great and the haters are looking pretty dumb. If they stay healthy (always a giant concern for any team in any sport), watch out...

I'm truly hoping Greg Oden just has terrible luck. After microfracture surgery unexpectedly cost him his rookie season, he's hurt again, this time 13 minutes into his first NBA game. He was hurt when he was at Ohio State with a wrist injury that forced him to solely use his left hand for the majority of his one year in college. I hope he can just get healthy and have the opportunity to use his incredible size and talent and show everyone what he can really do. So far though, he's either terribly unlucky or his body just wasn't meant to handle the rigors of playing basketball for a living. Let's hope his luck is about to change; the Blazers need him, the NBA needs him, professional sports always needs more good guys like him. I'll feel cheated if he doesn't get his chance to shine. I can't imagine the frustrations he'll feel if his career doesn't amount to what it should. Let's hope it doesn't come to that...

NFL

I don't live and die with the NFL, I prefer college football, but I definitely watch when I can. It's entertainment and the speed, size and talent of the NFL is incredible and as a sports fan, can't be ignored. That said, my hometown team, the Bungals, are terrible. My adopted local team, the Cardinals, are now good but have always been terrible, and I'm certainly not one to just jump on the bandwagon. That's offensive to real Cardinals fans, if they actually exist. But the Cardinals look to be on the right track and I wish them the best of luck. As always, it'll be interesting to see how the NFL season unfolds.

College Football

The BCS system is a disaster and simply has to go. We've been for awhile now, as Mike Wilbon would say, in a "gots ta go" situation with the BCS. Please bring on a playoff. Please. This is what an eight team playoff might look like for this year:

No. 1 Alabama vs No. 8 OK State

No. 2 Texas Tech vs No. 7 USC

No. 3 Penn State vs No. 6 Oklahoma

No. 4 Florida vs No. 5 Texas

BCS backers claim that the system is effectively a season long playoff and therefore every game, every week truly matters. Yea, yea...whatever. I call shenanigans... What if in the NFL, after 16 games, computers and the subjective opinions of so called 'experts' decided which 2 teams would play in the SuperBowl? The NBA, no playoffs, just whoever the ESPN guys think should represent the Eastern and Western conferences after the 82 game regular season is finished. The baseball World Series will feature the winner of a coin toss in even years and a rock-paper-scissors contest in odd years between the Red Sox and Yankees vs the winner of a National League raffle ticket 50/50 fundraiser, proceeds going to support St. Jude's Children's Hospital. In the World Cup, we'll just have Brazil play the top European team at the time and forget about the rest of the tournament.

College football has never been more popular, but attributing that success to the BCS system (the backers claim the BCS has driven interest sky high) doesn't mean the system is working, it simply means it is controversial and gets people talking. Like people that slow down to look at a crash on the highway, just because it's something people look at or talk about doesn't make the crash a good thing. With an eight team playoff, interest in college football would be at an all time high (because of the potential games listed above) and would peak at the right time, the National Championship game between the two teams that earned the right to be there with their play ON THE FIELD, not the two teams placed there by the computers and pollsters who make up the BCS.

As for my Ohio State Buckeyes, I think they're looking at a 10-2 season and a trip to the Rose Bowl for a rematch with the Trojans of USC. No shame in a season like that...

College Basketball

I love college basketball but don't truly care about it until like February. I'll obviously watch and try to keep up with it until then, but it doesn't get my full attention until after the holidays, the college football bowl games and the NFL playoffs are over. That said, watch out for my Arizona State Sun Devils this year under third year head coach Herb Sendek, lead by All PAC 10 1st team and Freshman of the Year JAMES HARDEN (and senior Jeff Pendergraph). Harden is one of the best players in the country and will be the main reason ASU will surprise some people this year. They've been picked to finish as high as 2nd in the Pac 10, which gets them nothing other than expectations which I think they should live up to and possibly surpass.

Hockey

I don't care about hockey.

Baseball

My Reds once again sucked. They do have the makings of a good team though if they can continue to develop the youngsters and make some frugal/smart free agent signings and trades. The Devil Rays proved that even without Yankee or Red Sox money, you can make it happen if you are smart and do things the right way.

The D'backs are just as close to being terrible as they are to being really good, if that makes any sense. The NL West is a bad division overall so it's hard to judge the success of anyone from that division, including the D'backs. A few players and/or decisions will dictate their success in the coming years...

Enough about baseball though, we'll revisit in February/March.

Soccer

I'd talk all day about soccer but since most people don't follow it, I won't waste my time writing about it. If you wanna see the best players and teams in the world, watch the UEFA Champions League on ESPN.

Movies

I'm impatiently waiting for Quantum of Solace to open on November 14th. Casino Royale was fantastic and I've always liked the Bond movies.

To tide me over until then, I plan on seeing Role Models this weekend. It looks pretty funny, I'll let you know how it goes.

As for movies I've seen recently, Pride and Glory, Traitor, Eagle Eye and Body of Lies were all really good, no regrets in spending the time and money to see those four. Righteous Kill was ok, probably worth about $4 of the 7 I paid to see it. The scale I use to rate movies (stolen from my [doofus] brother some years back) goes by how much money I would have paid based on how much I did pay to see the movie. The brilliance of this scale, if not painfully obvious, is that if you go to the $2 theater (to see the movies that have been out for awhile) you simply adjust how much you would've paid to see the movie you paid $2 for. I remember seeing Catch Me If You Can at the $2 theater and since it was pretty good, it was worth at least a buck fifty. I also remember seeing Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist at a $2 theater. Except for one scene in that movie, I remember thinking the entire time that I had gotten robbed; I would never be able to get my $2 or more importantly my time back. I don't remember who I was with but we walked out, the only time I've ever done that at a movie.


That's all I got for now. Until next time...