ESPN.com and The Ring

You might not think it, but sometimes reading just the news headlines of ESPN.com is pretty funny. (Skip this section if you don't like sports). Today I saw a hilarious headline: "Cubs will dig deep to get Baker." Hmmm.... Interesting thought. Maybe the Cubs will dig deep, but why would they bother? Baker would be an idiot to leave the Giants for the Cubs, and anyways, the Cubs are better off hunting for their managerial positions at a temp agency, because they are gonna end up replacing whoever they get within a couple years anyways. Anyone who doesn't know by now that the simple strategy of Cubs ownership is as follows:

1. Sit around and let your team suck. Collect money from the machine known as Wrigley Field.

2. When fans finally begin to complain more, make some fake effort to get good players. Except, don't get players who are actually good, get players that used to be good, or had one good fluke season. Focus on getting old, fat, dumb closers or washed up, injury-prone outfielders and you're on the right track.

3. Though you try your best to draft as ignorantly as possible, as the Chinese saying goes, "Even a blind cat catches a dead mouse once in a while." So once in a while, you'll somehow stumble upon a young talent that brings excitement to the organization. When you have a hot sensation to work with, be sure to milk him for all he's got, so the fans will think your team is going somewhere. Either pitch him till his arm falls off, or let him develop and get good, then just shrug your shoulders when he inevitably leaves to sign with a better team (pretty much all 28 non-Chicago teams will do).

4. When the Cubs start to suck horribly again, blame it on the manager. Fire the manager and hire whoever is sucker enough to take the job.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 a few times. Once in a while, it may be advisable to change GMs in addition to the manager, so as to better mislead the fans into thinking the team is headed for better days. Tell the GM to say stuff like "I'm here to shake things up" or "We are gonna do everything in our power to make this a winning ballclub."

Ah... enough ripping on the Cubs for now. Sadly, the Sox aren't a whole lot better. As a matter of fact, Chicago fans as a whole probably suffer the worst collection of owners in the 4 major sports among all the cities in this country.

Another ESPN.com story was about the Lakers game, when Rick Fox and Doug Christie got into a shoving match on the floor, then the teams clashed in the tunnel. If whoever reading this doesn't know, Doug Christie is the guy whose picture you see when you go to a dictionary and look up "whipped." He makes up all these flaming hand signals to his wife when he's playing on the court, she doesn't "allow" him to do interviews with female reporters, and they also have a entire wedding ceremony every year on their anniversary. Here he is, getting into a scuffle with Rick Fox, who is well known as Vanessa Williams's man. Anyways, Guy-who-dropped-his-balls-somewhere-and-forgot-to-pick-them-up fights Guy-with-some-sort-of-manhood; is there any question what the result will be?

In an unrelated story, I saw The Ring earlier tonight. Pretty good movie, I actually watched the Japanese version a few years ago in Taiwan (my sister should remember because she liked to mess up her hair in front of her face like the girl in the movie), and both versions are pretty good if you're in the mood for some thrillin. It doesn't all make sense or fit together, and the acting isn't the best, but there are worse ways to spend 7 bucks these days.

Which leads me to the real reason I brought up this topic: to complain about AMC. Is it just me, or was the student discount $5.25 at AMC only a couple years ago? They have steadily raised the price where it's barely a discount anymore. I feel like some sort of middle-aged moviegoer who doesn't look like a student anymore but is too young for the senior citizen discount. Sucks.

Even worse is, that place is freaking littered with junior high kids. Seriously, I felt like I was back in the O'Neill lunchroom at that theater. Everyone was all chattering and being immature that I thought I should have pulled out a stack of detention slips and started writing kids up.

Another thing: how did this movie only get a PG-13 rating? I'm not even considering the fact that at least half the kids watching that movie there tonight did not look 13 to begin with. They looked like they should be at home playing with Barbies and reading Tiger Beat or something. But honestly, I've seen plenty of rated R movies that aren't half as disturbing as this one. I guess it explains why I didn't get asked for ID at the ticket booth though.

Kids these days... little punks, all of them.