I have a new TV show recommendation for everyone: Survivorman! I love this show! The basic premise is that this guy (Les Stroud) gets dumped off in some remote location with hardly any supplies and no food or water, and he has to survive for a week. The cool thing is that he films it all himself. There is no camera crew or anything; he really is all alone the whole week trying to survive with just like a Swiss Army knife and a piece of gum or something.
Les is charismatic and interesting, and he has a lot of survival knowledge and experience. You will be amazed at the things he is able to think up to help him survive. Also, he goes to really cool locations like the Amazon rainforest, Canadian arctic, Arizona desert, African plains, etc.
The shows airs on the Discovery Channel. Also, for those of you with Netflix, Season 1 is available there too. I highly recommend it! :)
Monday, September 24, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Friday, September 07, 2007
One sentence about the 2007 Detroit Lions
While I am very excited that the football season FINALLY began last night with the NFL season opener (the college games last weekend were still preseason, right? right?????????? please????), I am afraid that I find myself still a Lions fan. Despite the 10 win season predicted by our fearless QB Kitna, my attitude is much closer to that of ESPN columnist David Fleming, who gives this wonderful, one sentence explanation of why the Lions will win fewer than 8 games this year:
"The Lions were 9-7 in 2000 and missed the playoffs by one play (a game-winning 54-yard field goal by the Bears on the last snap of the season) when owner William Clay Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford himself, pulled his own uber-Edsel and tabbed former NFL linebacker Matt Millen to run the franchise for a cool $3 million a year, despite the fact that Millen would continue to live in Pennsylvania most of the time (the Lions are located in Michigan), that he was legally blind in his eye for talent, that he wore sneakers with suits and that he possessed no actual front office experience of any kind whatsoever, zero organizational skills and, on occasion, the social couth of Britney Spears -- fatal flaws that first showed up with Millen's doomed decision to let interim coach Gary Moeller go in favor of the 49ers unknown and slightly quirky offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, who has since become a good coach but was overmatched at the time and consequently went 5-27 -- a historic run of ineptitude highlighted by two things: his decision to kick the ball after winning a coin toss in overtime; and the choice of quarterback Joey Harrington as the third pick overall in the 2002 draft; Harrington, of course, was the first in a string of draft blunders by Millen (including, but not limited to, first-round busts wideouts Charles Rogers and Mike Williams) which were then layered by even poorer decisions in free agency that -- because of the current economic structure of the game that places a premium on fortifying your roster with inexpensive, young talent through the draft -- have crippled the the Lions at a rate of two years for every bad draft, which, by my calculations, puts them in the clear somewhere around 2047--something Millen might understand by now had he not spent so much time doing damage control for things like telling Mike Ditka during a radio interview about one of his players who was a "devout coward"; the true definition of which Millen himself conveyed a little later when he told Mornhinweg his job was safe while, behind his back, he was negotiating to bring in former 49ers coach Steve Mariucci, something he did, but only after being fined $200,000 by the league for not interviewing a minority candidate, an egregious error, to be sure, but also another fundamental, fatal, front office flaw considering how Mooch's schemes didn't match well with the personnel Millen had been able to cobble together through years of under drafting and over spending, leading to yet another season of futility, another sickening outburst (after a loss in Kansas City in 2003 Millen shouted a homophobic slur at Chiefs wideout Johnny Morton but kept his job) which led to the first recorded speculation four years ago about Millen's imminent dismissal (when, in fact, no one ever gets fired in this franchise, not even people who can't dress themselves) and then to what I think is the lowest point in the franchise's 77-year history: when Ford himself said he actually was pleased with Millen's drafts and his leadership and scoffed at complaints about Millen's 10-38 start, saying, "the fans, and I don't blame them, are interested in the won-loss record and I guess that's the barometer you judge success or failure by if you're a fan"; well, right, exactly, because everyone knows how unfair and subjective those silly NFL standings can be, I mean, that would be like someone measuring the Lions' heart only by that string of 24 consecutive road losses or something like the Ford Motor Company being judged strictly by its losses, layoffs and plant closings like the ones going on when, in 2005, Millen was given a FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT EXTENSION (the second most shocking thing in Michigan sports history after the App State loss) and Mooch was fired but allowed to continue earning more than $10 million not to coach the Lions -- something most NFL coaches would gladly do for free, just not potential candidates in Detroit like Jim Haslett and Russ Grimm who never received the courtesy of a phone call from Millen after he hired Rod Marinelli, a well-respected coach from Tampa who, nonetheless, led the Lions backwards to 13 more losses (seven of them on the road) and a humiliating 27-10 shellacking by Miami and former Millen scapegoat Joey Harrington on, of all days, Thanksgiving which, at least, inspired fan protests and walk-outs like the Millen Man March as Detroit -- softer (32nd in rushing and 28th in total defense), sloppier (minus-9 in turnover ratio) and slower than ever before -- suffered its sixth-straight losing season under Millen (who is now 24-72 with a league-worst .250 winning percentage during his realm despite once promising to "get out" if he couldn't win it all in five years) which, one could argue, did put the Lions in a position to draft fourth-time's-the-charm wideout Calvin Johnson whose huge frame fits perfectly with the rounded routes of offensive coordinator Mike Martz's schemes, thus giving the Lions the potential for a scary-good offense with a loaded backfield, a better line and three legit, downfield homerun hitters (Mike Furrey increased his catches by, oh, 97 balls in 2006); which, trust me, I know, is like waving a Vernors, a Coney (no mustard, light onions) and some Sanders ice cream under the noses of starving Lions fans, but could still all be for not if Kitna, 34, who got sacked 63 times in 2006, can't stay healthy and Millen's stellar backup plan, someone named Dan Orlovsky (career passing: 63 yards) takes over for the Motor City Kitties: a transaction that likely would lead to what is the only sure bet with the Lions these days: another contract extension for Millen."
"The Lions were 9-7 in 2000 and missed the playoffs by one play (a game-winning 54-yard field goal by the Bears on the last snap of the season) when owner William Clay Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford himself, pulled his own uber-Edsel and tabbed former NFL linebacker Matt Millen to run the franchise for a cool $3 million a year, despite the fact that Millen would continue to live in Pennsylvania most of the time (the Lions are located in Michigan), that he was legally blind in his eye for talent, that he wore sneakers with suits and that he possessed no actual front office experience of any kind whatsoever, zero organizational skills and, on occasion, the social couth of Britney Spears -- fatal flaws that first showed up with Millen's doomed decision to let interim coach Gary Moeller go in favor of the 49ers unknown and slightly quirky offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, who has since become a good coach but was overmatched at the time and consequently went 5-27 -- a historic run of ineptitude highlighted by two things: his decision to kick the ball after winning a coin toss in overtime; and the choice of quarterback Joey Harrington as the third pick overall in the 2002 draft; Harrington, of course, was the first in a string of draft blunders by Millen (including, but not limited to, first-round busts wideouts Charles Rogers and Mike Williams) which were then layered by even poorer decisions in free agency that -- because of the current economic structure of the game that places a premium on fortifying your roster with inexpensive, young talent through the draft -- have crippled the the Lions at a rate of two years for every bad draft, which, by my calculations, puts them in the clear somewhere around 2047--something Millen might understand by now had he not spent so much time doing damage control for things like telling Mike Ditka during a radio interview about one of his players who was a "devout coward"; the true definition of which Millen himself conveyed a little later when he told Mornhinweg his job was safe while, behind his back, he was negotiating to bring in former 49ers coach Steve Mariucci, something he did, but only after being fined $200,000 by the league for not interviewing a minority candidate, an egregious error, to be sure, but also another fundamental, fatal, front office flaw considering how Mooch's schemes didn't match well with the personnel Millen had been able to cobble together through years of under drafting and over spending, leading to yet another season of futility, another sickening outburst (after a loss in Kansas City in 2003 Millen shouted a homophobic slur at Chiefs wideout Johnny Morton but kept his job) which led to the first recorded speculation four years ago about Millen's imminent dismissal (when, in fact, no one ever gets fired in this franchise, not even people who can't dress themselves) and then to what I think is the lowest point in the franchise's 77-year history: when Ford himself said he actually was pleased with Millen's drafts and his leadership and scoffed at complaints about Millen's 10-38 start, saying, "the fans, and I don't blame them, are interested in the won-loss record and I guess that's the barometer you judge success or failure by if you're a fan"; well, right, exactly, because everyone knows how unfair and subjective those silly NFL standings can be, I mean, that would be like someone measuring the Lions' heart only by that string of 24 consecutive road losses or something like the Ford Motor Company being judged strictly by its losses, layoffs and plant closings like the ones going on when, in 2005, Millen was given a FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT EXTENSION (the second most shocking thing in Michigan sports history after the App State loss) and Mooch was fired but allowed to continue earning more than $10 million not to coach the Lions -- something most NFL coaches would gladly do for free, just not potential candidates in Detroit like Jim Haslett and Russ Grimm who never received the courtesy of a phone call from Millen after he hired Rod Marinelli, a well-respected coach from Tampa who, nonetheless, led the Lions backwards to 13 more losses (seven of them on the road) and a humiliating 27-10 shellacking by Miami and former Millen scapegoat Joey Harrington on, of all days, Thanksgiving which, at least, inspired fan protests and walk-outs like the Millen Man March as Detroit -- softer (32nd in rushing and 28th in total defense), sloppier (minus-9 in turnover ratio) and slower than ever before -- suffered its sixth-straight losing season under Millen (who is now 24-72 with a league-worst .250 winning percentage during his realm despite once promising to "get out" if he couldn't win it all in five years) which, one could argue, did put the Lions in a position to draft fourth-time's-the-charm wideout Calvin Johnson whose huge frame fits perfectly with the rounded routes of offensive coordinator Mike Martz's schemes, thus giving the Lions the potential for a scary-good offense with a loaded backfield, a better line and three legit, downfield homerun hitters (Mike Furrey increased his catches by, oh, 97 balls in 2006); which, trust me, I know, is like waving a Vernors, a Coney (no mustard, light onions) and some Sanders ice cream under the noses of starving Lions fans, but could still all be for not if Kitna, 34, who got sacked 63 times in 2006, can't stay healthy and Millen's stellar backup plan, someone named Dan Orlovsky (career passing: 63 yards) takes over for the Motor City Kitties: a transaction that likely would lead to what is the only sure bet with the Lions these days: another contract extension for Millen."
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