Saturday, May 31st

The latest Pathetic Plea for Attention is online, you can listen to #90 here. If you'd like to subscribe just click the subscribe to podcast button on the right of the page, then choose iTunes or which ever mp3 listening device you use.

Friday, May 30th

It's been a bit since I've thought about Shannon Elizabeth in the first American Pie movie, not sure what she's doing these days.



The Rangers return home for a 10 game home stand, they are playing some of the best baseball in the league, will you go see them? So far, attendance hasn't been very good.

Rangers have to win games to win back fans in stands
By RANDY GALLOWAY
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram staff writer

For those fans who still care enough to show up, Nolan Ryan says thank you.

But thus far, that's been a vanishing breed at The Ballpark.

By the Rangers' own attendance numbers, and there's no doubt that count has been embarrassingly padded for several years, this is the season when the paying customers in Arlington are finally telling Tom Hicks to hell with it.

And they mean it this time.

With more than one-fourth of the 81 home games already played, the Rangers are on pace for the worst gate in new yard history (it opened in 1994) and even including old Arlington Stadium, you have to go back to 1988 to find anything this dismal.

Enter Ryan, who returned to Arlington in February.

Let me repeat: When Hicks brought in the Hall of Famer, and placed him in charge of Everything Ranger, from the field to the executive level, Tom already knew his regime had pushed fans beyond the hissed-off point.

He had gauged that over the winter, when season ticket renewals died. Only desperation could force a power broker like Hicks to put the jobs of his own handpicked people in jeopardy by hiring someone of Ryan's stature.

The stupid among us labeled it as strictly a PR move. The stupid don't know Ryan. While showing patience with the baseball people after the team's dismal April, he already has made two key executive-level hires. More changes will come, bet that. This job is no folly for Ryan, who didn't need the money or the headaches. This is high and tight hardball, the same way he once pitched.

But with attendance directly related to the product on the field, Ryan said Thursday his biggest challenge is right here, right now, meaning tonight's opener of a 10-game homestand.

"Based on the play of the club over the last month, and with the excitement created by a Josh Hamilton and some of our other young players, I hope the fans will give us a chance again," Ryan said. "It's up to us to change their attitude about us, but I think we've got some things working in our favor at this point.

"If the fans come out and see it, I believe they will like it."

The outside issues involving the economy, the price of gas and heavy street construction around the ballpark are merely a part of the attendance problem. As Ryan admits, local fan disapproval of the Rangers began long before any of those.

But he's also been hands-on, face-to-face, in dealing with the fans.

The good news for Nolan is he's found much more anger than apathy. Anger can be changed. Apathy has no cure.

"By far, people are most upset with the quality of play over the years (one winning record this century), and with the direction of the organization," he said. "I definitely think the fans are willing to come back to the ballpark if we give them a reason.

"My goal is to get them back, and then they can make a decision on their own. I understand what we are up against with gas prices, with the construction and with an extended period of last-place baseball, but as an organization we can only control one thing -- how we play."

In April, the play was awful. In May, it's been very good.

Harvey Korman died yesterday, it's pronounced Headley, Headley!

'Carol Burnett Show' veteran Harvey Korman dies at 81

By Jim Cheng, USA TODAY

Harvey Korman was proud of his training at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, where he performed Shakespeare, Shaw and Ibsen.

But the versatile actor and comedian will forever be known for raising being "second banana" into an art of the highest order, especially during his 10 years on The Carol Burnett Show.

Korman died Thursday in Los Angeles of complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He was 81.

Korman, a native of Chicago, was a character actor from the beginning, playing the butler in a seventh-grade production of Heidi. In high school he was active in drama club, and after graduating, he enlisted in the Navy during World War II. After the war, Korman returned to Chicago, where his high school drama teacher recommended him for further study at Goodman.

He gained his first extended TV exposure as a regular for four seasons on The Danny Kaye Show in the early '60s. His also did voice-over work on Tom and Jerry and as the Great Gazoo on The Flintstones.

But he came into his own in 1967, when he joined Burnett's CBS variety show. He won four Emmys and a Golden Globe for his work and became famous for trying, and usually failing, to keep a straight face when confronted with the antics of his frequent sketch partner Tim Conway.

"You learn to work fast," Korman once said, describing the art of sketch comedy. "Yet, it has to have two elements: It has to have truth to it, and it has to be funny."

Lost finished up it's 4th season last night and as expected, it was a very good episodes. I think it's a bit clearer as to what is going on and what isn't clear intrigues the hell out of me.

'Lost' solves a big mystery — and raises more

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Jack's not the only one who wants to get back on that island.

A great season of Lost ended with a suitably great finale, which opened where last year's left off and ended with the last-shot, whoa-inducing discovery that Locke was the man in the casket. Didn't see that coming — and I can't wait to see what this terrific TV series has coming next.

Lost likes to vary the tone of its season-enders, shifting from the moving elegy to escape of the first finale to the fast-forward leap last May that sent us all through the looking glass. Thursday, the emphasis was on action/adventure. Blow up the bomb, move the island and dispatch some regular characters, all set against the show's visual splendor, an asset not to be underestimated.

You can't have real adventure without risk and sometimes loss. For Lost fans, that means the loss (we suppose) of Jin, Michael and Locke, a fabulous bait-and-switch surprise in a story designed to make us think the casket-dweller was Desmond. Still, don't grieve yet: As the finale once again proved, dead on Lost is not the same as gone, or even dead.

People love the show's mystery, but the mystery works only if you care about the characters caught up in the middle of it. That's where Lost excels. It's the emotion that matters: the pull invoked by Sawyer's sacrifice for Kate, Desmond's reunion with Penny, and hard as it may be to believe, Ben's exile from the island. Like all of TV's best series, Lost makes us think we know these people, and has attached us to them.

Thursday, May 29th

With the Lost finale tonight, we have to check out a freaky shot of Evangeline Lilly, right? I mean, you can't get enough Kate, can you?



A Ranger on the cover of SI? Of course I'm worried about the jinx, you expected different from me?

A jinx can't possibly derail Hamilton

Randy Galloway
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

The new face of the franchise now graces the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated. Actually, it's a game-action picture of Josh Hamilton's back swing, but in modern day lore, the cover is supposed to be a jinx thing.

Then again, when life's bottom came four years ago, when the crack addiction and downing a bottle of Crown Royal a day had him living on the streets, when he blew all $4 million of his signing bonus money, when the booze/drug daze made what would eventually be 26 tattoos, including the face of Satan, seem like a logical body-sculpture choice, and even when his triumphant debut in the majors a year ago actually caused resentment among Cincinnati teammates...

What the heck does Josh Hamilton care about a magazine cover jinx? Easy answer for a guy who has been to hell and back: Josh said he'd never heard of such a thing.

Albert Chen, the SI writer, does an excellent job of laying out the remarkable details, some of which you've already read, but the day you get tired of this story, immediately grab your left wrist with your right hand, press the thumb tightly, and hope you detect a pulse.

This kind of luck is not supposed to be happening to the Rangers, certainly not the Rangers of the Tom Hicks ownership era, during which everything that could go wrong did.

But based on talent, salary (major league minimum of $330,000) and four more seasons before free agency, there is no player in baseball you'd trade for Josh Hamilton. Zero. Zilch. The only debate of the moment is this:

Hamilton, two months into a long season, and only eight baseball months into his major league career, has already become the best player in the game. Think about it, and get back to me.

The irony is that while Hamilton still battles his personal demons, this December acquisition doesn't chase the trading hoodoo-voodoo of Rangers' general manager Jon Daniels. Will this guy ever get lucky enough to flat nail a deal?

Even with Hamilton, not necessarily, because of the way Edinson Volquez continues to pitch for the Reds. Is that really you, Edinson?

(Actually, the hoodoo-voodoo redemption for Jon Boy has arrived in the form of outfielder David Murphy, who came over from Boston for Eric Gagné last summer. In New England, they now ask, "Is that really you, Murph?")

Another offseason means only one thing, Greg Ellis must be bitching again.

Ellis upset with limited role in Dallas Cowboys' workouts

01:22 AM CDT on Thursday, May 29, 2008

By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News
cwatkins@dallasnews.com

IRVING – Dallas Cowboys outside linebacker Greg Ellis will not participate in the last day of organized team activities today because he's upset with his repetitions being reduced in practice, sources said.

Ellis missed the first two days of OTAs this week and doesn't plan on coming back to practice at Valley Ranch unless he gets more repetitions.

Last week, the Cowboys told Ellis some of his practice time would be reduced to give 2007 first-round pick Anthony Spencer more time on the field. The Cowboys like Spencer's speed and intelligence, and coach Wade Phillips praised his performance in practice Wednesday. But Phillips said Ellis remains the starter.

According to the sources, the Cowboys have told Ellis they don't want to wear down his 32-year-old body in May. But a source said Ellis doesn't trust the team's motives.

Ellis was unavailable, and his agent, James Williams, declined to comment.

Team owner and general manager Jerry Jones downplayed Ellis' absence, saying the OTAs are voluntary.

Shirley Manson, the lead singer of Garbage, is joining the cast of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Hmmmm.

Shirley Manson cast in 'Sarah Connor'
Garbage lead singer to be regular on 'Terminator' series

By Nellie Andreeva
Hollywood Reporter

Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson is venturing into acting in a big way with a regular role next season on Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

On "Sarah Connor," produced by Warner Bros. TV, Scottish musician Manson will play Catherine Weaver, the CEO of a cutting-edge high-tech company.

The sci-fi series, an offshoot from the "Terminator" feature franchise, is returning for a second season in the fall after launching in midseason as the highest-rated new scripted series of the 2007-08 season.

The season finale of "Lost" airs tonight. The show has always messed with time, not knowing exactly where you are date wise in the story, that has all intensified this season.

'Lost' writers wrap their heads around space-time continuum

By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

On Lost, time is always of the essence — for the show's characters, its writers and its viewers.

After dazzling viewers with its character flashbacks and flash-forwards, the ABC mystery drama (season finale, tonight, 9 ET/PT) has shaken the space-time continuum this season by exploring the temporal variance between the island and the outside world and the possibility of traveling vast distances rapidly, or traveling through time.

Viewers able to maintain their equilibrium will be rewarded with tonight's finale, in which Locke (Terry O'Quinn) seeks to "move the island" to save it. "When you see it, you will be able to see much more clearly what the possibilities are when it comes to space-time on the show," says executive producer Carlton Cuse.

Time is central both to Lost's story and in how the show is presented to the audience. "The Constant," arguably the most highly praised episode of a well-received fourth season, saw island castaway Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) connect via his consciousness to a younger version of himself in England.

It took five weeks, rather than the usual two, for the writers to put that story together, because they needed to determine its ramifications on future stories. Executive producer Damon Lindelof says "The Constant" may be the most important episode of the series in laying out Lost's rules for time travel.

"I remember in the writers room saying, 'I wish we could travel into the future, read the script and then come back and just go: This is what it's going to be,' " he says.

Space-time questions have popped up in recent episodes, as when the body of the doctor from the offshore freighter washes up on the island apparently before he was killed, and when a parka-clad Ben (Michael Emerson) appears in the Tunisian desert seemingly out of nowhere.

Andrew Morrison, a Lost viewer who teaches physics at Illinois Wesleyan University, says the producers have so far avoided the physically impossible.

They "have seemingly not (yet) violated any laws of physics, although the technology for how the effects would be accomplished are way beyond present-day engineering capabilities."

Lost's rules for space-time are a mix of real physics and the show's internal mythology. "We try to use enough science to give a sense of credibility," Cuse says.

Weezer has done it again, with a new album coming they have figured out a way to make a music video that people actually want to see. Maybe the bigger trick is that people are seeing it.

YouTube stars, Weezer dine out on 'Pork & Beans'

By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

Alternative rockers Weezer pay homage to a bunch of familiar YouTube personalities in the new music video Pork & Beans and, in the process, have created a viral hit of their own.

With more than 4 million views (and 21,000 comments) already, the video has been the website's most popular since premiering there Friday. "We saw it shoot up to 500,000 (hits) in six hours," says YouTube's Michele Flannery.

More than two dozen YouTube stars appear, including Lauren Caitlin Upton (the beauty queen who flubbed a geography question), Judson Laipply (who showcased five decades of booty-shaking in Evolution of Dance), Chris Crocker (the weepy "Leave Britney Alone!" fan) and Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz (the Mentos-and-Diet Coke mixing scientists).

The song's non-conformist message ("I'm 'a do the things that I want to do/I ain't got a thing to prove to you") made video director Mathew Cullen think of YouTube.

"I was fascinated with this idea of having this video about being yourself," he says, "and at the same time being an anthem about the creativity and individuality that's expressed through the Internet."

For the band, Cullen's proposal "just clicked," says drummer Pat Wilson. "This is an important part of modern culture that hadn't been addressed."

Cullen rounded up as many YouTube celebs as he could, convening them with the band at a Los Angeles hotel to make the video over four days.

Here is the video for Pork and Beans.



Bruce played the stadium that houses the Manchester United last night.

May 28 / Manchester, UK / Old Trafford Stadium

Notes: Five years (almost to the day) after Bruce and the E Street Band played the Old Trafford Cricket Ground on the Rising tour, they return to Manchester for another open-air show at nearby Old Trafford Stadium, home of Manchester United. They keep up the current trend of longer shows, again at 26 songs, with a good number of audibles including "Trapped," "Darlington County," "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City," and "I'll Work for Your Love."

Wednesday, May 28th

Donna Feldman has been in Deal or No Deal and is also in the new Adam Sandler flick.



The Cowboys and Mavs are working together to get the 2010 NBA All Star game to the new stadium. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, it means there will be more tickets but they ain't goinhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifg to be good ones. On another Cowboy related note, we finally received our ticket package for the new stadium. Surprisingly they offered a pretty intriguing financing package. It looks like I will have tickets in the new stadium afterall, I was getting very concerned about that.

Sources: Dallas Mavericks, Cowboys team up to court 2010 NBA All-Star Game

03:59 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008

By DAVID MOORE / The Dallas Morning News
dmoore@dallasnews.com

The Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys have joined forces in an effort to bring the NBA All-Star Game to the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington as early as 2010, multiple sources said Tuesday.

No bid has been submitted and executives stress all that has been done at this stage is to explore options. But the unusual alliance has piqued the interest of NBA officials and satisfies divergent goals for the local franchises.

The Cowboys have aggressively pursued a wide range of sporting and entertainment events for their new $1.1 billion facility in Arlington, which opens in 2009. Staging an NBA All-Star Game at the stadium is consistent with that approach and addresses one of Mark Cuban's biggest concerns.

The Mavericks owner has been reluctant to host the game at American Airlines Center because the league's corporate obligations would kick season ticket-holders out of their seats. Moving the game to Arlington removes that obstacle.

"It's important to me to find a venue that can support all of our season ticket-holders and all of the visitors who would come to Dallas for the game," Cuban said by e-mail. "We are exploring all of our options."

Principals in this process were hesitant to provide details. But one option would be hold the game at the Cowboys stadium and the lead-up events at AAC. Officials with the NBA recently conducted a site survey of the Cowboys stadium to get a feel for the facility.

A Cowboys spokesperson referred all questions about this collaborative effort to the Mavericks. The NBA office only acknowledges clubs or groups that have submitted bids.

"We have received no formal bid," said Michael Bass, the NBA's senior vice president for marketing communication. "I couldn't comment on bids we haven't received."

The NFL commissioner met with Pac Man Jones last week. Not sure what it means or if it is news but here ya go.

Sources: Dallas Cowboys' Pacman met with Goodell last week

04:04 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008

By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News
cwatkins@dallasnews.com

Suspended Dallas Cowboys cornerback Pacman Jones met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell last week in Atlanta about his possible reinstatement to the league, according to sources.

Jones said he hopes to speak with Goodell and get a decision at some point this week about his return.

"For the most part, I think I should be all right," Jones said to the NFL Network on Sunday regarding a possible reinstatement. "This year has been one of the hardest years in my life besides when my dad died. But it's also been a learning experience. I made a lot of bad decisions and thank God I'm getting a second chance.

"I own up to my decisions, but the past is the past and I'm ready to move on."

Jones is not allowed to visit the Valley Ranch facility or take part in any team-organized training, but he's hopeful the league will allow him to participate in OTAs this week at Valley Ranch.

However, sources said if the NFL doesn't allow Jones to practice with the team, the Cowboys are hoping he can undergo counseling sessions at Valley Ranch and interact with his teammates.

Jones has talked to several of his teammates at charity events.

I'm not sure if the move of Hank Blalock from 3rd base to 1st base is a good thing but I'm starting to wonder if he'll ever get healthy enough for us to find out.

Blalock's move leaves many questions
By GIL LeBRETON
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Another day, another page in the Hank Blalock medical journal.

It's a mystery novel, actually. At the current rate, by the final chapter, all the Texas Rangers are going to be left with at the infield corners are chalk outlines.

Blalock, who went on the disabled list April 29, received a cortisone shot in his right wrist Tuesday. That should enable Hank to do... what, exactly?

Dig out low throws at first base in Frisco? Hit line drive home runs in Arlington?

It's a mystery. Right.

Blalock played in only 22 games before he was hurt. And this was after spending 3 1/2 months on the DL last season, which is another way of saying that it's been almost a full 12 months since the Rangers have seen Blalock with any kind of regularity in their starting lineup.

He was batting .299 with seven runs batted in when he went down with a left hamstring injury four weeks ago. But so much has changed since then.

New team, new attitude. More runs, more discipline at the plate. Steadier pitching, steadier defense.

It will be up to Blalock to see where he fits into what has become a complex new equation.

Blalock seemed to try to answer that 10 days ago with his surprising announcement that he planned to move from third to first base.

Both the timing and the front office's endorsement of the move were curious.

A more versatile Blalock is a more valuable Blalock, one would think. But why would Blalock unilaterally decide that vacating one position, where Ramon Vazquez has a career .257 batting average, and changing to another, where he would be ousting Frank Catalanotto, who has a career .293 average, is the best thing for the Rangers?

When you went to Wendy's yesterday, was that Eva Longoria who handed you your hamburger? It might have been.

'Desperate Housewives' star dishes up Frostys, fries

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Eva Longoria Parker took time to dish out Frostys and french fries at a Wendy's on Tuesday. The Desperate Housewives star worked the drive-thru at the restaurant to help kick off the Father's Day Frosty Weekend, an event that donates 50 cents for every Frosty sold to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and its signature program Wendy's Wonderful Kids.

Longoria Parker worked at Wendy's from 1991 to 1994, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported in its online edition.

Tuesday, May 27th

Two reality show chicks I've never heard of, Bianca Gascoigne and Charlotte Mears covort on a beach. Think they had any idea there were cameras around?



Makes sense doesn't it, no other Cowboy is under more scrutiny than Roy Williams who has had a bad last couple of years. So, why should he be at the practices last week, why shouldn't he be on a cruise?

Status of Dallas Cowboys' Roy Williams slowly sinking

04:11 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Kevin Sherrington
Dallas Morning News

Ever since Darren Hambrick infamously asked, "What do voluntary mean?", the necessity of attending the NFL's voluntary off-season workouts has been called into question.

Here's your answer: Depends on the player or the circumstances or both.

Brian Uhrlacher can miss organized team activities (OTAs) in Chicago because he's a feared player and unquestioned leader in an established system.

Jason Taylor's case is tenuous because of a new regime in Miami, and Bill Parcells wants him to take charge.

Tony Romo withdrew from the Colonial Pro-Am last week so he could make OTAs and avoid another flap like his Mexico getaway.

Meanwhile, Roy Williams went cruising with the family while his ship in Dallas slowly sinks.

Straight up: As a proponent of family bonding, let me congratulate Williams on his vacation companions. Many successful men pass on quality time. A cruise is a wonderful way to show you care. And besides, it's a big boat.

Anyway, Williams met his family obligations head-on, which is how he once encountered men bearing footballs.

The decline of the latter is one of the reasons Williams should have made other plans last week.

If you think the local media always seems to be bashing Williams for his coverage skills or horse-collar tackles or a lack of insight that passing up the OTAs demonstrates, you're right. Trust me, it's not personal. If we were critical of everyone we don't like or doesn't like us, the paper would look like some of our reader blogs.

The Cowboys are looking to open up the new stadium next summer with a series of concerts. They don't say it in this story, but the timing sure does seem right for U2 to open up the stadium, with a new album coming out this fall and a tour next year.

Cowboys stadium officials hope to recruit top talents for concert series next year

03:22 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
jmosier@dallasnews.com

ARLINGTON – The first fans filling the new Dallas Cowboys stadium will be more likely to hear to a pop dance beat, country twang or rock guitar lick than cheers for the 'Boys.

The Cowboys hope to have a concert series next summer as ambitious as their new $1.1 billion stadium. Team vice president Stephen Jones said he'd like to see a three- or four-night series of concerts featuring a variety of music styles, although he hasn't approached any performers yet.

"It's like wanting to go to the Super Bowl," Mr. Jones said. "You've got that as your goal. Whether you accomplish it is another question. There's a lot of moving parts and targets in order to get something like this accomplished."

Mr. Jones said plans for these concerts are in the earliest stages and are still just being discussed internally.

New stadiums often sponsor concerts as a way to make a big splash, but it's often just one big name. The Eagles played in 2001 at the brand-new American Airlines Center in Dallas. The Rolling Stones performed at the University of Phoenix Stadium in the fall of 2006, soon after the Arizona Cardinals started their first season there.

Jeff Apregan, a booking consultant for the Gridiron Stadium Network, which includes 14 large sports stadiums, said assembling a concert series of this scale would be difficult but not impossible. Despite the hurdles, he said, it's a smart move.

"It helps solidify the venue in the marketplace as a sports and entertainment venue," Mr. Apregan said. "It's very possible that a concert might draw people to the venue who might not necessarily be coming to a football game."

But he said there's a short list of artists big enough to play stadiums, and they aren't on the road every year.

Mr. Jones said he'll not only look at who's touring in the summer of 2009 but also search for big talent to perform a onetime show.

"They don't have to necessarily be on tour to participate," he said. "Now, it makes it more difficult. ... On the flip side of it, if they're on tour, they have a schedule to adhere to."

Bob Lefsetz, a music industry blogger, said having a big-name family like the Joneses involved could only help an event like this to happen.

"It's about relationships," he said. "At that level, you'd be surprised how many people know other people and what favors might be involved, especially in the sports-entertainment nexus."

Who should be getting the credit for the Rangers turnaround this month? Surely it can't be GM Jon Daniels, can it?

Rangers are looking like a team, thanks to the GM
By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Say this for JD, he got this one right.

Well, he and Nolan Ryan did. And really thanks mostly to Josh Hamilton.

Still, this stunning development of relevant Rangers baseball in June has to go down as "hello, win column" for JD. After all, the young GM screamed patience into an angry "fire everybody" din back in April.

Yes, one of the jobs he saved probably was his own but his leap has been rewarded. The Rangers no longer stink. And they may just be on the path to OK.

"I'm not sure I ever had the same level of doom and gloom as everybody else," JD said Monday. "We were not as bad a club as our record showed at the time, and so I am not surprised we have picked up and played better."

This is not to pretend the Rangers are anything other than what they are right now, which is pretty OK, which is better than they were, which was downright embarrassing.

And ugly barely does justice to April.

The Rangers looked to be careening towards 100 losses and JD, Nolan and Owner Hicks had gathered in Dallas to discuss how and when exactly to fire manager Ron Washington.

And downplay all they want, this was a how proposition.

The only if was whether JD deserved to be flushed as well for overpromoting Wash and giving him what looked to be another big lot of nothing. And what was JD supposed to say "hey guys, give them a chance to salvage this"?

Because his butt was in the grease, too, just like Wash and MYoung for another beyond-dismal April and "patience and stability" doesn't exactly sell a lot of family four packs.

Of course, patience and stability was exactly what was needed.

They were about the only strategy Hicks had not employed with his baseball team until April, when he spared the guillotine, which is kind of how this Rangers team finds themselves riding a 17-9 wave.

Say this for Wash: He's a Gloria Gaynor lyric. He survives.

And a big hunk of that credit for his surprising survival belongs to Hamilton.

I used to believe only a stud starting pitcher could save a baseball franchise. Hamilton has me reconsidering this theory. He has that "wow" factor Owner Jones talked about, the first Ranger since AFraud that inspires you to watch. The dude is a serious triple-crown contender with a .333 average, 12 homers, 53 RBI and a nasty .600 slugging percentage before Monday's game in Tampa.

We went to a game in Oakland a few weeks ago and there weren't too many other people there. There were a ton of people tailgating but I'm not sure they came into the game since there were a lot of empty seats. It's starting to grate on the A's who are having a very good season.

A's attendance more miss than hit

David White, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

(05-26) 20:21 PDT -- The Coliseum was beside itself with pregame activity for one gloriously packed weekend.

Hundreds of fans draped the rails for batting practice. Concession lines ran deep. Women's bathroom waits went long.

"This is annoying," a fan grumbled while waiting 10 minutes to buy popcorn chicken and fries before Friday night's game.

Never fear, lovers of elbow room and A's games: The Coliseum will return to its spacious self soon enough.

The Red Sox left town Sunday, presumably taking their thousands of party loyalists with them. The Blue Jays are swinging by, presumably bringing thousands of empty seatbacks instead of diehard roadies.

Translation: Like it or not, the A's will go back to being one of the hottest unwatched shows in the big leagues - at least until the Yankees come, June 10-12.

"You always want it to be a packed house, but we all know that's not likely to happen," A's catcher Kurt Suzuki said. "If you let that kind of stuff bother you, you're in trouble. You've just got to go out there and play.

"If they come, they come."

For the most part, they haven't.

The A's rank 26th in attendance, the same spot they finished the past two seasons. They have averaged 20,803 fans through 27 home games for a 561,696 total.

Almost 90,000 came at two "home" games in Tokyo. Another 97,592 came for last weekend's Red Sox series, and it only seemed like half of the fans swore allegiance to the defending world champions.

In 14 of the 22 games in between, unused seats outnumbered seat-sitters 2-to-1. Only two of those games broke 30,000 at the Coliseum, where capacity is listed at 34,077 with most of the upper deck tarped off.

Sydney Pollack died this weekend. He was an oscar winning director of Out of Africa, he also directed films such as Tootsie and the Way We were. I think of him as an actor, he was in George Clooney's flick Michael Clayton last year and he was great in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives.

'Tootsie' director Sydney Pollack, 73, dies of cancer

By Mike Clark, USA TODAY

Sydney Pollack began his career as an actor, then often continued as one, even after winning directing and producing Academy Awards for 1985's Out of Africa. Maybe this explained the chemistry with his own actors, which included a particularly successful partnership with superstar Robert Redford, who starred in seven Pollack movies, including 1973's The Way We Were.

Even so, Redford was not among the actors nominated for Oscars under Pollack's stewardship. They include the star of Pollack's most durably popular movie (Tootsie): Dustin Hoffman, a guy in a dress, which is, well, not quite the Redford way.

Pollack died Monday afternoon of cancer at his home in the Pacific Palisades, his publicist Leslie Dart told the Associated Press. He was 73. He had been diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago, she said. Concerns about his health had surfaced last year when suddenly he bowed out of directing HBO's Recount, which made its debut Sunday night.

Thanks to his on-camera career, which included TV appearances on Will & Grace, The Sopranos and Entourage, Pollack was probably better known to the public than most of his peers behind the camera. As an actor, he hosted the fatal party in Stanley Kubrick's swan song Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, earned notably good reviews playing a man with a midlife crisis in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives in 1992 and even delivered a candidate for Tootsie's single biggest laugh line. As the shocked agent accosted in the Russian Tea Room by the "new" Dustin Hoffman, Pollack blurted, "Oh, God, I begged you to get some therapy." His most recent screen appearances were in the current Made of Honor and as last year's Oscar-nominated Michael Clayton, which Pollack also produced.

"Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act," actor Clayton star George Clooney said in a statement. "He'll be missed terribly."

Pollack's credits as a producer or executive producer of other people's movies would add luster to anybody's resume: The Fabulous Baker Boys, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain, to name just a few.

Monday, May 26th

Marissa Miller comes in as the hottest chick of all hot chicks in Maxim's Top 100 for this year, here is the complete list.



Josh Hammilton returns to Tampa Bay tonight, the home of the team he screwed out of $4 million, not to mention putting the franchise back another couple of years. It could be fun tonight.

Rangers' Hamilton has history with Rays
02:51 AM CDT on Monday, May 26, 2008

By EVAN GRANT / The Dallas Morning News
egrant@dallasnews.com

CLEVELAND – Josh Hamilton had just about finished discussing his upcoming trip to Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, the team that made him the top pick in the 1999 draft.

Hamilton, who makes his first trip to the Juice Box today with the Rangers, was almost finished. But not quite. He anticipated the final question like it was a 3-and-1 fastball.

"Do I think I let them down?" Hamilton said about his time in the Rays organization, which included a three-year suspension for substance abuse problems. "Is that the question?"

Well, yes. He did, after all, receive nearly $4 million from Tampa Bay in bonus money but never ended up playing for the Rays. Once he was reinstated, Tampa Bay left him off its 40-man roster; Cincinnati selected him in the Rule 5 draft and sent him to the Rangers after one season.

"When you draft a player, especially a high school player, you take a chance," Hamilton said. "They are so young, and you don't know what choices they are going to make. I didn't see what happened to me happening, and I know they didn't. But with kids, it's hard to predict what choices they will make.

"I'm grateful they drafted me and grateful they gave me the opportunity. There was a while where I felt like they gave up on me, but when personnel changed, they gave me a second chance. But it wasn't meant to be for me to be there. If it was, I'd be there now."

Hamilton, who was ejected in the sixth inning Sunday, said he is looking forward to seeing teammates he played with in the minor leagues in the Rays organization. He also has warm feelings for general manager Andrew Friedman, who helped him earn reinstatement.

But, Hamilton said he is more excited about a Tuesday fishing trip to the local flats. And he is most interested in seeing friends from the Winning Inning, a Clearwater, Fla.,-based Christian baseball academy.

Mickelson wins the Colonial, that's only a good thing for the local tourney who had seen it's better days.

Lefty drives Colonial in right direction
Kevin Sherrington
Dallas Morning News

03:09 AM CDT on Monday, May 26, 2008

FORT WORTH – For you conspiracy theorists out there who insist all the sporting world is a fix, or at least tilts toward your bookie, we offer the final round of the Crowne Plaza Invitational.

Phil Mickelson won Sunday, which was good for the title sponsor and the tournament and next year's tournament and just about everybody but Rod Pampling's deductibles.

Given the overall benefits of a win by the world's No. 2 player, you're excused if you regard the results suspiciously. Especially when the line between perception and reality is blurred like it was Sunday.

One minute you're in front of the flat screen watching Lefty hang on to Pampling's belt loops.

Next thing you know, Mickelson is taking tips in a Crowne Plaza meeting room.

Female fan: "I think you should hit it straighter."

Mickelson: "Straighter? No, that's good."

Male fan: "And farther."

Mickelson: "I like that. Straighter, farther."

For my money, no pro athlete beats Mickelson in a commercial or for dramatics in general.

Consider the nature of his second victory at Colonial, a winding, old-school course with more hairpins than a '50s beauty salon.

A reporter asked if Mickelson's power approach is testimony that there's another way to win out here.

"What?" Mickelson deadpanned. "From the trees?"

We saw the new Indiana Jones flick this weekend, as did most of the US apparently as the box office was huge at $126 million. It was a good time just to see Indy back on screen but I'm not sure that was a good movie. It was corny as all get out and it required you to literaly shut off your brain and not think about it for a second, during or after the flick. I guess there isn't anything wrong with that.

'Indiana Jones' nabs $126 mil opening weekend
Five-day cume estimated at $151 mil
By Carl DiOrio
Hollywood Reporter
May 25, 2008, 12:04 PM

That includes an estimated $101 million in Friday-Sunday coin, which followed a first-day Thursday gross of $25 million. Paramount also projected a $25 million haul for Monday, which would give the first Indy sequel in 19 years a five-day cume of $151 million.

Once tallies are in for the entire Memorial Day frame through Monday, the iconic adventure sequel will be measured against marks such as the $151.1 million tally posted by last year's "Spider-Man 3" in a best-ever weekend opening.

"Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" enjoyed the highest-grossing first five days of any picture before or since, registering $172.8 million after debuting on a Thursday before a nonholiday weekend in May 2005.

Data service Nielsen EDI recognizes only three- and four-day opening weekends, including holiday-lengthened sessions. So for the record books, "Skull" will have its Friday-Monday total stacked up against opening-weekend bows topped by the Spidey sequel.

Produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by Paramount, "Skull" bowed Thursday with grosses ranking well down on a list of best opening days topped by "Spider-Man 3," which featured a first-day Friday gross of $59.8 million.

"Sith" is still the best-ever Thursday opener, with $50 million in first-day boxoffice.

The Indy sequel registered an estimated $37 million on Saturday, the first session offering the opportunity to fatten "Skull" grosses with robust family business. Paramount estimated its Sunday haul at $33 million.

Elsewhere Sunday, Disney was projecting a Friday-Sunday gross of $23 million for its family-fantasy sequel "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Disney didn't project a Monday gross for the pic.

The Friday-Sunday tally represented a 58% drop from the opening weekend for "Prince Caspian." The Walden Media co-production, which is expected to finish in second place through Monday, toted a 10-day cume of $91.1 million through Sunday.

Bruce played the 2nd of 3 shows in Dublin on Friday and show 3 last night.

May 23 /Dublin, IRE / RDS Arena

Notes: "Who was here last night?" Bruce asked the crowd Friday night in Dublin, and he got a huge response back. "Get outta here! We'll switch it up for you, then." Bono, though in attendance, didn't join in as rumors suggested he would, so it wasn't switched up that much... but more than a third of the set changed for the second show of the leg, with nine songs not played on opening night. "Trapped" into "Murder Incorporated" was a particular high-energy highlight. The "Darlington County" that followed (one of four songs played from Born in the U.S.A.) was a very physical performance, with Bruce running all over that enormous stage. "Prove It" featured more stunning and ever-evolving solo work from Nils.

Though a hot day, it was anoher chilly night, and before "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," Bruce said "I guess it's a little cool for this one...." But the band's finally getting the hang of it, this was probably the best-sounding live version of the song to date, and Bruce generated enough heat that he took a beer from the crowd and drank it down before "Devil's Arcade." "So I owe someone a beer now!"

In the encore, Springsteen thanked Dublin for their "support of all the music we've made, in the past ten years especially." As he asked Stevie for the time in "Glory Days" -- sleepy time? quittin' time? -- he wondered aloud, "Maybe it's Guinness time!" With "Dancing in the Dark" next, Bruce came down to pull a young girl up for a dance, but seemingly overwhelmed, she had to go right back to her folks. So instead, he went the other direction and grabbed a grown-up guy from Brescia, Italy for the honor. Bruce announced at song's end: "I will now scare small children!"

So these new two-way video screens are cool -- they control the horizontal, they control the vertical. As you can see here, they're starting to play around more with some tall shots, giving even the farthest reaches of the place a nice view.

Saturday, May 24th

My latest podcast, #89 can be heard here. To subscribe click the button on the right.



Scarlett Johansson is #2 on the Maxim hot chick list.

Pac Man Jones does his Charles Barkley impersonation by owing Caesar's Palace in Vegas $20,000 and they weren't happy about it.

Cowboys' Pacman Jones pays debt to Vegas casino

01:16 AM CDT on Saturday, May 24, 2008

By ALBERT BREER / The Dallas Morning News
abreer@dallasnews.com

Suspended Cowboys cornerback Pacman Jones sent a check to a Las Vegas casino Friday to pay off a $20,000 gambling debt, according to his agent, Manny Arora.

Jones received a $10,000 marker and two $5,000 markers, which serve as lines of credit in a casino, at Caesar's Palace in September. Because of Jones' non-payment, Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Bernie Zadrowski requested Thursday that felony theft and fraud charges be filed against Jones.

Zadrowski said Friday that the debt is paid, along with $1,675 in statutory fees and penalties attached to it, and that the request for charges had been withdrawn.

Zadrowski is chief of the district attorney's bad check unit. In Nevada, unpaid casino markers are treated as bad checks and are turned over to the district attorney for prosecution.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger said Jones is serving as a witness in a Las Vegas strip-club shooting trial, and has entered a plea of no contest to a charge of conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct.

"He's entered a plea, and he's been told to stay out of trouble," Roger said.

Jones' camp has been in constant contact with the DA's office, according to Arora. Jones will receive a $100,000 advance on his 2008 salary with the Cowboys, but can't get it until he is reinstated by the NFL.

Arora thinks a recent case involving former NBA star Charles Barkley and $400,000 in markers is probably the reason this case became so public.

"It's a non-story," Arora said. "I think if this hadn't happened recently with some famous ex-athletes, I don't think this would've even popped up over $20,000."

Friday, May 23rd

This is Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica. She's not #3 on the Maxim hot chick list, that is Jessica Biel but they didn't have any good pictures of her, so I went with Starbuck today.



Typically during the final year of his contract, T.O. becomes difficult to deal with, just ask the 49'ers and the Eagles. Well, this is the final year of his Cowboys contract and people just keep waiting for him to blow up.

Cowboys' Owens isn't sweating contract situation

11:40 PM CDT on Thursday, May 22, 2008

Jean Jacques Taylor
Dallas Morning News

IRVING – T.O. wants his money. Let's make that clear from the start.

And sometime before the end of the 2008 season – no one can really say when, though the Cowboys have already discussed it internally – Jerry Jones is going to give it to him.

When he does, Terrell Owens should receive a deal similar to the three-year, $27 million contract Randy Moss signed in March. That deal included a $12 million signing bonus and $15 million in guaranteed dollars.

Owens will deserve it after catching 166 passes for 2,535 yards and 28 touchdowns in his first two seasons in Dallas. Of all of the great receivers who have played for the Cowboys, only Michael Irvin has had a better two-year stretch.

If we're honest about the situation, what else is Jerry going to do? It's not like there's another player on this team capable of being a No. 1 receiver, and any inquiries into acquiring Roy Williams, Anquan Boldin and Chad Johnson didn't go anywhere.

T.O., who has a year left on the three-year, $25 million contract he signed when he joined the Cowboys, said he's taking a low-key approach to his contract situation.

For the record, the 34-year-old says he's happy Marion Barber and Terence Newman signed long-term deals worth more than a combined $90 million a few days ago.

Now, we all remember what happened in Philadelphia when T.O. became upset with his contract situation in 2005: The Eagles sat him for the last nine games of the season for conduct detrimental to the club.

T.O. insists that will never happen in Dallas.

I believe him. So should you. Besides, Jerry won't let any problems between him and T.O. fester.

When's the last time Jerry had an acrimonious contract situation with a star player? No, Greg Ellis doesn't count.

The Rangers keep on winning and they keep doing it on the back of triple crown candidate Josh Hamilton. Think it's a coincidence that the Rangers are trying to open up contract talks with the center fielder?

Rangers exploring long-term contract for Hamilton

07:31 PM CDT on Thursday, May 22, 2008

By EVAN GRANT / The Dallas Morning News
egrant@dallasnews.com

MINNEAPOLIS – The latest contractual trend in baseball is to lock up players with less than two years' experience to deals that extend well past eventual free agency.

In the wake of several recent deals, the Rangers have started exploring the possibility with Josh Hamilton. Hamilton, who has one year and nearly two months of major league service time, is at the forefront of the AL Triple Crown chase.

There have been some internal discussions and at least one casual conversation with his agent.

"What's meant to happen is going to happen," Hamilton said after acknowledging some conversation. "The more I read the Bible, the more I realize it doesn't make any sense to worry. I'm not going to be able to add one day to my life by worrying. I know God will provide for my family.

"I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I mix well with these guys and have felt that way since the first day at spring training. Since I started playing baseball, this is the most comfortable I've ever felt."

Hamilton's twisting path to major league stardom makes doing a deal more complicated than the ones recently signed by Evan Longoria with Tampa Bay and Ryan Braun with Milwaukee. Longoria signed a deal that could keep him with the Rays for nine seasons; Braun signed an eight-year, $45 million deal. But both players are younger than 25 while Hamilton turned 27 on Wednesday.

The sides would probably also have to consider Hamilton's difficult past, which included three years out of baseball because of drug-addiction issues.

Josh Howard seems to be the most tradeable player the Mavericks have, the question is, does anybody still want him after his troublesome past couple of months?

Josh Howard's future: What could Dallas Mavericks get for him?

12:32 AM CDT on Friday, May 23, 2008

By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News
esefko@dallasnews.com

It may turn out in this longer-than-desired summer that the Mavericks are better off keeping Josh Howard.

So far, that's the way they are talking, saying that smoothing things over with the once nearly untouchable Howard is a prudent course of action. His trade value – sky high as recently as March – went south with his off-court antics in the playoffs. The market might be so barren for Howard that the Mavericks can't find anything close to equal value.

But that doesn't mean they won't try. Or at least listen to overtures. A team that has exited the playoffs in the first round the last two seasons when expectations were much greater has to consider significant roster changes.

The future of Howard is one of the key questions of the off-season. His admission to off-season marijuana use, not to mention his late-night birthday bash, during the playoffs may or may not have been reasons for his pitiful play in the first round.

But those decisions put his teammates and the organization in a bad spot.

"After spending every day the last week with him, it's clear to me that Josh knows that this is a critical summer for him," coach Rick Carlisle said Wednesday. "He understands he's made some mistakes. And I made it clear to him that trust has to be earned. And he has a lot of people to win back. It's doable. But it takes time.

"He told me that it's very important to him to stay a Dallas Maverick. He also understands his name is going to be out there with speculation and rumors. I like the things I've heard to this point. But trust and respect is a two-way street. I made it clear to him that I'm going to do my part. And so far, he's done his."

Here are some reviews of the more high profile finales of the past few weeks. Personally, I liked the Grey's, Desperate Housewives and House the best.

The finale word on the TV season

By Robert Bianco,, USA TODAY

A strike-struck television season comes to an end:

This season, all's well that just ends.

Seldom have viewers seemed more conflicted over a TV season — unhappy with how shows performed in their post-strike runs and equally unhappy that the shows are cutting those runs so short. It's like the old restaurant complaint: The food was lousy, and there wasn't enough of it.

Clearly, timing has not been this season's strong point. As if to put the final odd coda on an off-putting season, some of TV's best shows waited until it was over to go off. ABC's Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty aired their finales Thursday, after the official close of the 2007/2008 TV season, and Lost hasn't ended yet. It won't wrap up until next Thursday.

Though some series are now gone for good, most of TV's most popular shows will return. That gives you all summer to wonder whether Warrick really dies (almost certainly), whether Horatio survives (almost certainly), and what the heck did the Housewives do to Mike?

And how were the finales? As you'd expect from an unusually inconsistent season, inconsistent. Here's a critical look at the seasonal bows of some of TV's best and most popular series.

Bruce kicked off the European Stadium tour last night in Dublin, Ireland.

May 22 /Dublin, IRE / RDS Arena

Notes: It was a cool and drizzly Dublin day, settling down to a light mist as Bruce and the E Street Band kicked off their Spring 2008 European tour. "We brought the New Jersey weather with us, I guess!" Bruce said. Don't let the word arena fool you, they've most definitely made the move to stadiums. This Dublin venue is an equestrian oval -- perhaps not your standard stadium, but an open air venue vastly larger than anything the Magic tour has played so far, with a bigger stage, bigger video screens, bigger everything. So any faltering tonight can be chalked up to the performers getting the feel of the new setup, getting their stadium legs back -- not to mention the strangeness of playing in broad daylight, as "The Promised Land" opened the show at 8:10 before the sun went down. No Phantom Dan tribute video, but Bruce mentioned Danny's passing as he thanked the crowd for their good wishes.

Despite a tentative start, Bruce and the band turned in a powerful and lengthy performance, at 26 songs. Four songs between "Reason to Believe" and "She's the One" made for a kick-ass mid-set stretch. "Out in the Street," "Candy's Room," and "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" were all audibles, with the sing-along on "Sunny Day" going so well that Bruce had to hush the crowd in order to go into "The River." Patti Scialfa hasn't made the jump across the pond, with Bruce telling the crowd that as he left home, "the Guinness was being poured." But Southside Johnny was there -- "the most dangerous man in show business" -- singing backup and clowning around on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out." And here in the land of its inspiration, "American Land" closed the show.

Thursday, May 22nd

Eva Longoria Parker comes in at #4 on the Maxim hot chick list.



Tony Romo skipped an appearance at the Colonial Pro-Am yesterday to attend practice and suddenly people think it's another sign he's focused on football. Apparently he and Jessica are no more. It's frustrating to me, I still don't think she had anything to do with their collapse last year but now that they are not together, everything positive that happens people will point to their breakup as the reason.

Romo's no-show at Colonial is proof positive

Randy Galloway
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

It wasn't exactly a Mexico beach with a blonde, but don't let a Tony Romo "perception" decision this week go unnoticed.

In the name of football, and at what would become a personal cost of $9,000, Tony passed up a trip to Fort Worth on Wednesday, even though we were offering a scenic view of the Trinity River, free-flowing margaritas and, since it's Colonial week, also world-class girl watching.

Romo, however, suddenly opted for Irving, and "Organized Team Activities" at Valley Ranch, meaning local good-guy J.J. Henry lost his well-promoted Colonial pro-am partner, and the tournament lost a huge drawing card for the event.

Now, look...

Tony did the right thing, and except for gallery appeal, it's no big deal, but in theory, neither was the OK given by the head coach for Romo and a couple of teammates to wander off to Mexico back in January. Perception-wise, it only became a huge deal once the Cowboys lost the next week to the Giants.

In defending himself over that, Tony said something stupid. Said he didn't give a hoot about perception. Starting with the likes of Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach, the overwhelming response to that statement has been a polite, but firm, wise up, kid. Perception can be a killer in this line of work.

With a great love for the game of golf, Tony agreed to be a Colonial pro-am participant before the Cowboys decided on the OTA schedule. Pulling out wasn't his fault, even though these things are a somewhat voluntary practice session signifying mostly a big bunch of shorts-and-T-shirts nothing.

But the NFL and the players union allow four of the three-day sessions in an off-season, giving teams the opportunity to bring in the full roster. Reportedly, only two players were absent Wednesday at Valley Ranch, one being safety Ken Hamlin (in a contract disagreement) and the other, yes, safety Roy Williams, who had an excused absence because of a family commitment.

Roy is probably the next-to-last guy who needed to be missing, considering his current situation, but the last guy who should have skipped any of these three days (the wrap-up is today) would be the starting QB. It would have, well, just looked bad.

HBO's original flick Recount premieres this weekend, it's about the 2000 election and stars Denis Leary, Laura Dern and Kevin Spacey.

'Recount' gives insiders' account of 2000 election

By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

The new HBO movie Recount has more than numbers going for it.

Part drama, part comedy and part political thriller, Recount (premiering Sunday, 9 ET/PT) recalls the fallout from the controversial 2000 presidential race, hanging chads and all.

It's a timely reminder of what might have been, had the Supreme Court not blocked Al Gore's efforts to recount Florida's ballots, leaving the Democrat a few hundred votes short of potentially winning the state's 25 electoral votes. The decision essentially provided George W. Bush the slim margin of victory that propelled him to the White House.

Recount traces the confluence of election events, legal maneuvering and political bickering that embroiled Democrats and Republicans for five weeks. Its timing gives it particular relevance with 2008's election race, in many ways defined by Bush's tenure.

"We're eight years into a presidency that's taken a direction we will be paying for and suffering from for a long time," says Kevin Spacey, who plays Recount's Ron Klain, the Gore operative who led the Democrats' recount effort. "What's encouraging is that we find ourselves in a new election where the public is engaged, interested and passionate."

Neither Bush nor Gore is prominently featured in Recount. Instead, the film focuses on the behind-the-scenes, post-election fracas by both parties as they battle over voting irregularities ranging from hanging chads and local county miscounts to the 20,000 Floridians disqualified from voting after wrongly being categorized as convicted felons.

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, who screened the film this week, says that despite a blue-state tilt, Recount adds up to a fun watch.

"It's a pretty good rendition of a seminal moment in American history, when we were sitting on pins and needles waiting for the election's outcome," Brinkley says.

Wednesday, May 21st

Sarah Michelle Gellar comes in at #5 on the Maxim hot chick list. It is always nice for a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer representation.



Yesterday the Cowboys spent some of my ticket money on long term deals for Terrance Newman and Marion Barber.

Cowboys banking on Newman, Barber

12:12 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 21, 2008

By TODD ARCHER and ALBERT BREER / The Dallas Morning News
tarcher@dallasnews.com

IRVING – On a day when Jerry Jones and 31 other NFL teams voted unanimously to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, the Cowboys owner and general manager took care of two of his Pro Bowlers.

Cornerback Terence Newman signed a six-year extension worth $50.2 million with $22.5 million in guaranteed money, and running back Marion Barber signed a seven-year deal worth $45 million that includes $16 million guaranteed.

While the league and players association will have labor peace at least through 2010, the uncertainty of what might happen beyond that led to a flurry of action, even as Jerry and Stephen Jones attended the spring meetings in Atlanta.

The Cowboys wanted to get the deals done before the end of business Tuesday because of future changes to the salary cap following the owners' decision to opt out of the labor agreement.

How long signing bonuses can be prorated and how the 30 percent yearly increase would count against the salary cap would have been factors had the deal not been reached Tuesday.

The players wanted deals done so they could concentrate on football. Newman, entering the last year of his contract, was scheduled to make $1.4 million this season. Barber had been tendered a deal worth $2.562 million as a restricted free agent and missed the first day of organized team activities Tuesday.

He will be at today's workouts.

"I think it was a big factor for the Cowboys," Barber's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said of the deadline. "They have so many fine players and big deals they have to negotiate. So it may not be a factor for other teams, but it was for the Cowboys.

The Rangers say CJ Wilson is still the closer. Loyalty is great but I'm just not sure a closer should have an ERA over 5.

Wilson to remain Texas Rangers' closer - for now

11:34 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 20, 2008

By EVAN GRANT / The Dallas Morning News
egrant@dallasnews.com

MINNEAPOLIS – C.J. Wilson remains the Rangers closer. For now.

Manager Ron Washington said Tuesday he would "probably" give the ball to Wilson in the Rangers' next save situation. But he didn't commit past that.

"He's going through some growing pains," Washington said a day after Wilson blew a 6-5 lead against the Twins. "But we feel like he is mentally tough enough to handle it. If the opportunity comes up, we'll see if he wants it. I'd like to get him back out there and in the same situation as soon as I can."

Wilson allowed a pair of one-out walks and then a game-tying single Monday. Since April 20, he has an 8.49 ERA and has two blown saves in five chances.

The Rangers expect the first-year closer to encounter some degree of a learning curve, but they were not happy with the way Wilson handled a couple of close calls Monday. After the first walk, he got ahead of Brendan Harris 0-and-2 and then retreated from his fastball to throw a couple of curves that missed. Harris eventually worked his way to a walk, putting the tying run in scoring position.

After the walk, Wilson was still talking about the calls when pitching coach Mark Connor came to the mound.

Apparently Bill Parcells is fighting with one of his players in Miami. I don't buy it for a second.

Parcells needs to lighten up and end rift
Posted on Mon, May. 19, 2008

By GREG COTE
Miami Herald
gcote@MiamiHerald.com

The two lives of Jason Taylor show in sharper-than-ever contrast now, sequins and shoulder pads.

On Monday the Dolphins reconvened to begin their latest three days of offseason OTAs, or organized team activities, but absent Mr. Taylor, who of course was on the other side of the country competing (ludicrous as this once might have sounded and still does to some) in the finals of television's Dancing With the Stars.

Tuesday finds the team back on the field. Except Taylor, who'll be back inside your TV anxiously waiting to learn if his season of sambas, cha-chas and foxtrots has been good enough to waltz away with the dancing crown.

Wednesday, the Dolphins end their latest round of football preparation, but again sans Taylor, who hopes to be making the morning-after talk-show rounds that day with dance partner Edyta Sliwinska, basking in triumph, luxuriating in swelling stardom.

Meanwhile, back at Dolphins headquarters in Davie, club high-potentate Bill Parcells quietly bristles and boils, stews and seethes, over Taylor's continued absence -- over the very idea that a player on his watch might choose ballroom dancing over Tuna's definition of dedication. And get away with it!

What galls Parcells (picture the face of a man biting a lemon) is that a ''Parcells guy'' does not prance or pirouette in ruffled sleeves.

Miami's macho new boss once referred to a former player as ''she'' for far less.

The Taylor-Tuna tiff has been a slowly mushrooming South Florida sports drama for months now, and it is time to call it what it is:

Ridiculous. Embarrassing. Infantile.

Mike Piazza retired yesterday and they are still bitter in LA that they traded him 10 years ago.

Piazza: the blue-plate special

He retires without a team, but it should have been as a Dodger

By Bill Shaikin, ON BASEBALL
Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2008

The great ones should not bid farewell via e-mail. Mike Piazza deserved to tip his cap and bask in the applause, secure in his place as one of the Dodgers' brightest stars.

His place would have been between Tom Lasorda and Sandy Koufax, on opening day, at the end of the Dodgers' stirring parade of players through the decades. Dodger Stadium went nuts when Koufax appeared, and the place would have gone only slightly less berserk with Piazza in the house.

But he was not retired then, just unemployed. He never did find a job, and he retired Tuesday, at 39. No standing ovation, no public appearance, just a statement sent to media e-mailboxes.

"I walk away with no regrets," Piazza said. "I knew this day was coming and, over the last two years, I started to make my peace with it."

It is difficult, even to this day, to make peace with the idea that Piazza did not play out his career with the Dodgers, that they traded perhaps the greatest hitting catcher in history -- and Lasorda's godson, no less.

The Dodger Way was no more. It is a decade later, and the Dodgers have yet to recover the tradition, the loyalty and the championships.

Piazza was a homegrown superstar, with a story made for Hollywood. The way Lasorda starts to tell the story, five clubs scouted Piazza.

"Every one of them said he couldn't play," Lasorda said.

So, as a favor to Lasorda, the Dodgers drafted Piazza in 1988, in the 62nd round. Of the 1,433 players selected, he was No. 1,390.

He made himself a decent catcher through hard work but, boy, could he hit. As a rookie, in 1993, he hit .318 with 35 home runs. In 1997, his last full season with the Dodgers, he hit .362 with 40 home runs.

Bruce hops up on stage to join Mike Ness, the singer of Social Distortion in New Jersey.

May 17 / The Stone Pony / Asbury Park, NJ

Notes: For the second of two Mike Ness shows at the Pony, the Social Disortion frontman was joined on stage by his friend (and longtime fan) Bruce Springsteen. After watching the show from the soundboard, Springsteen joined in for a four- encore. As Linda tells us, there was "'Misery Loves Company,' the song they did together on Mike's 1999 solo CD, Cheating at Solitaire. Then they did my favorite Social D. song, 'Ball and Chain,' but instead of sticking to the original rocking version, they did it as a slow, country ballad. Bruce sang the second verse, and the crowd went nuts. Next was a 'If You Leave Before Me,' from Cheating at Solitaire, followed by a fun 'I Fought the Law.' What was really cool was seeing the excitement and giddiness of Social D. fans after the show. Most of these fans are guys in their 20s -- tattoos, pierced body parts, part hardcore punk/part rockabilly, and their hot Bettie Page-type girlfriends. They were so happy and excited, and I heard them saying, 'Man, nothing gets better than this!' and 'Wow, can you believe it? How frickin' amazing was that?!'" As Ness asked the crowd, "Aren't you guys glad you came the second night?" [Correction: Ness performed Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" without Springsteen]

Tuesday, May 20th

Not much of an update today, we had a death in the family, so I'm in Louisiana for a funeral. I'll be back on Wednesday with a regular update.





As I type, Rotten Tomatoes has the new Indy flick at 73% positive reviews.

Monday, May 19th

Eva Mendes comes in at #7 on Maxim's hot chick list this year.



Here is some breaking news, female athletes don't get respect unless they are hot.

An ugly situation: Female athletes sell sex appeal first

Andrea Adelson | From the Press Box
Orlando Sentinel
May 19, 2008

Annika Sorenstam plays golf with class and grace, and markets herself in the same way. Never once did she pose for pinup posters in skimpy clothes. The raciest thing she ever did? Appear in the SI Swimsuit Issue in 1999 -- with her body hidden under water.

So the news of her impending retirement left me with a sad and unsettled feeling. Who do we have left that has her perfect mix of dominance, high marketability and no revealing photos circulating among the general public?

Anyone?

Right now, there are no Mia Hamms, no Sorenstams, no women at the top of their sports celebrated for their athleticism and not for their bikini shots. When you think about it, the fact that these two women were able to wrangle commercials and endorsement dollars without stripping is hard to believe.

Because it seems every corporate sponsor or professional sports league wants to sell sex. The LPGA and WNBA have given their athletes makeup and fashion classes. Look at what Anna Kournikova has done for the way female athletes are portrayed.

And why do they want to sell sex? Because beauty is important to this society, whether we are talking about sports stars or movie stars or people in general. This is not just a female thing. The same holds true for men. Derek Jeter has gotten significantly more endorsement dollars than, say, Randy Johnson, who was just as dominant at his position.

But the expectations on women are different and have always been different, which is why this country has such a love affair with anything related to good-looking women, from Playboy to the Swimsuit Issue.

The Rangers won their 7th straight series this weekend, they head to Minnesota today to begin a 10 game road trip. It looks like Hank Blalock will join this them this weekend in Cleveland, only he may be playing 1st base.

Rangers will try Blalock at first base

03:51 AM CDT on Monday, May 19, 2008

By RICHARD DURRETT / The Dallas Morning News
rdurrett@dallasnews.com

ARLINGTON – Hank Blalock is moving across the diamond.

The two-time All-Star third baseman figured the best way to help a lineup that has clicked in his absence was to switch to first base, where production has been a problem for the Rangers since Mark Teixeira's departure last July. So Blalock made the suggestion to Ron Washington on Friday, and general manager Jon Daniels agreed it was a good idea.

Blalock, who has spent the last few weeks on the disabled list with a partially torn left hamstring, flew to Arizona on Sunday afternoon and will spend the next few days learning the position in extended spring games. He could join the team as the regular first baseman as soon as this weekend in Cleveland.

Blalock, 27, has never played first. He was a shortstop until he was drafted in the third round of the 1999 draft and moved to third. His only experience on the right side of the diamond was four games at second base in 2003, his first full season in the majors.

"I'm not doing anything to benefit myself here," Blalock said. "It's a new position for me, so I'm not sure how I'll do over there. Just watching the guys and how well we were playing, it crossed my mind."

Brad Wilkerson, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Frank Catalanotto, Chris Shelton, Ben Broussard and Jason Botts have all played at first since Teixiera was traded. They have batted a combined .212 with 42 RBIs in 102 games.

"I think it will make us better," Daniels said. "We talked about it internally, but when Hank approached us and felt he could help the team in that manner, it made sense. The guy's an athlete. If he comes back at 100 percent and gets that kind of run production at first base, it's got a chance to help the club."

Ramon Vazquez and German Duran will continue to platoon at third. Travis Metcalf could be an option in the future. He's playing third at Triple-A Oklahoma as he recovers from left hamstring tendon surgery.

Daniels said Blalock's position switch won't affect the progress of first baseman Chris Davis, who is learning his craft at Double-A Frisco.

The new flick premiered yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival. Here is a 2 1/2 star review from the USA Today.

Review: 'Indiana Jones' wields enough snap to satisfy

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

It has been nearly two decades, and Indiana Jones is a bit more grizzled. But his witty banter is still decidedly intact.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (* * ½ out of four), he uses his wits and still-considerable brawn to fend off an atomic bomb, ruthless KGB agents, roiling rapids, flesh-eating insects and angry Peruvian natives. And he tangles again with his most hated nemesis: the snake.

Right about the time the natives get restless, however, so do we. But the excitement picks back up and, overall, it's pleasantly nostalgic to see Harrison Ford as Jones again.

Ford seems to have taken the 19 years since the third Jones in smooth stride. He remains dashing in his weathered fedora, and he can still snap a bullwhip with finesse. Still, much fun is had, particularly by Shia LaBeouf's character, with Jones' having grown a bit long in the tooth.

Teaming Ford with Transformers' LaBeouf and reuniting him with Karen Allen were inspired choices. Less so is Cate Blanchett, who's over-the-top as an evil Russian scientist with the thickest accent since Bullwinkle's Natasha.

The stunts and special effects are spectacular, as one would expect from director Steven Spielberg. A motorcycle chase across the grounds of an Ivy League college is a treat, and Jones tosses off some of his best lines.

But while it's an intentionally far-fetched saga, there are especially implausible moments — even for Indiana Jones. Characters suddenly stand still, for instance, so special effects can happen around them.

Saturday, May 17th

Pathetic Plea For Attention #88 is online and you can listen to it here. If you are subscribed, check your iTunes, it will be there as well. If not, hit the subscribe to podcast link on the right.



I did it, I did it! I found #9 on the Maxim 100 hot chicks list. It's Lindsay Lohan. Uhm, ok.



We went to the Ranger game last night, let's just say it wasn't a pitching a defensive clinic by any means. The Astros committed 5 errors and the Rangers added one as well. That being said, the Rangers brought some serious power. 6 HR's including 2 hr's and RBI's from the RBI machine himself, Josh Hammilton.

Rangers thunder past Astros, 16-8

01:13 AM CDT on Saturday, May 17, 2008

By EVAN GRANT / The Dallas Morning News
egrant@dallasnews.com

ARLINGTON – On the surface, the Texas Rangers' 16-8 smashing of Houston on Friday was all about the thunder.

Meteorological fact: Before you feel the thunder, you usually see the flash of lightning.

Thor ... er, Josh Hamilton, who hit two of the Rangers' six home runs, provided the thunder. He also had five hits and five RBIs, both career highs. His 13 total bases tied Juan Gonzalez for the second highest total for a game in team history.

Ian Kinsler was the lightning. It was Kinsler's handmade run in the seventh inning that gave the Rangers the lead back after they'd seen an 8-2 margin disappear. He took a two-out walk, stole second when all 32,117 fans at Rangers Ballpark knew he was going, and scored from second with a nifty slide around a late tag on Michael Young's single to right.

"How about the momentum we've got going right now?" Hamilton said. "That was just awesome to witness and be a part of. And when you are talking about momentum shifts, [Kinsler's steal] is what started it. That's when things started getting fired up."

While Hamilton is quickly carving a mythic reputation for power in Texas – he leads the majors with 49 RBIs – Kinsler is quietly becoming one of the smartest baserunners in the major leagues.

He and the Rangers noted just enough hesitation in left-hander Wesley Wright's delivery to make a steal feasible. Wright twice threw over to hold Kinsler, but when he finally went toward home, Kinsler swiped second easily. It was his 12th stolen base without being caught this season and his 46th in 52 attempts in his career.

Among hitters since 1900 with at least 50 stolen base attempts, Kinsler's 88.5 percent success rate ranks first.

But Kinsler wasn't through. Young followed with a liner through the right side and Kinsler sped towards home. When the throw from Hunter Pence was just to the first base side of the plate, he was able to get in under J.R. Towles' swipe tag. It was a close enough play that Astros manager Cecil Cooper argued until he was ejected.

Friday, May 16th

Christina Aguilera comes in at #8 on Maxims top 100 hot chicks. Not sure what happened to #9, if I find her, I'll be sure and post her but for now, the site is going form #10 to #8.

I'm not 100% sure exactly where our seats are yet, we should get word in the next few days but the Cowboys released prices for the new stadium yesterday. Overall, I'm pretty surprised how low they were, I was expecting them to be much higher.

Cowboys reveal pricing plan for reserved seats

01:01 AM CDT on Friday, May 16, 2008

By JEFF MOSIER and BRANDON FORMBY / The Dallas Morning News

Dallas Cowboys fans won't need to be in owner Jerry Jones' tax bracket to afford a seat in his new stadium.

The team announced Thursday that the least expensive seats in the new $1.1 billion stadium in Arlington will cost $59, just $9 more than the cheapest Texas Stadium seats. Also, those seats – at least 8,000 of them – won't require a one-time seat option, which costs as much as $150,000.

The season ticket prices for the 50,000 reserved seats in the new stadium will range from $59 to $125 per game, including two preseason contests.

"That's very comparable to our ticket prices for the past couple of years at Texas Stadium," said Brett Daniels, a Cowboys spokesman. "There's just a small increase."

And just like at Texas Stadium, fans must buy season tickets to the new stadium. Single-game tickets are not available.

Tickets initially will be sold only to current season ticket holders.

Most reserved seats at the new stadium also will require seat options, which range from $2,000 to $5,000. The seat option gives fans the right to buy the same seats for 30 years.

The reserved seats are mostly in the upper decks, corners and end zones. The club seats are between the end zones and closest to the field.

On Thursday, the team also announced that it would sell 1,200 loge seats in the upper deck at midfield. Those will cost $125 per game and require a $12,000 seat option. The loge seats will have cushioned club-style seating, but those fans won't have access to the stadium's private clubs.

Cowboys officials said they would offer single-game tickets at the new stadium only if they failed to sell all the seats as season tickets.

"If that happened, we would come up with a single-game price," said Chad Estis, Cowboys vice president of sales and marketing.

He said the team doesn't expect that to happen.

The Cowboys had no single-game tickets available for the 2008 season. The few that were available in 2007 sold out in minutes.

Thursday's announcement comes nearly six months after the Cowboys released prices for the expensive club seats – $340 per game – which require seat options ranging from $16,000 to $150,000.

The Rangers are playing well, that's got to be because of Nolan Ryan, right?

After 100 days, Ryan is proving patience is a wiing formula

Ft. Worth Star Telegram
Gil LeBreton

A hundred days on the job, and Nolan Ryan still hasn't gotten anybody in a headlock.

What gives?

If anyone needed a neck-squeezing, Robin Ventura-style flogging after the first four weeks of the season, it had to be your Texas Rangers.

But Ryan, as the Rangers' new club president, chose to interject patience and his seasoned perspective into the mess that the club found itself in on April 25.

"Because of my career and being in so many different situations with different organizations, and so many different managers and make-ups of different teams," Ryan explained, "I understand that in the course of 162 games, you're going to go through some stretches like that."

So, Ryan waited. The Rangers washed themselves of their April incapacities. And, stunningly, here they are, playing good and almost-.500 baseball with the Houston Astros coming to town.

His patience has been a knee-buckling rebuke for those who hailed Ryan's homecoming last February, blindly presuming that it was the precursor to a much-needed housecleaning.

Instead, 100 days have passed, and Ryan hasn't fired, fanned or flogged anybody.

It's good business, and does anybody understand good Texas business better than Nolan Ryan?

General manager Jon Daniels already knew about Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher. But if you ask him, he sounds just as impressed these first 100 days with Ryan, the consummate businessman.

FOX was the last network to announce their fall schedule and they did it yesterday. They cancelled a show we liked Canterbury's Law but that wasn't a surprise. They did keep the Terminator show, which is cool, we liked that one. They have only 2 new shows this fall, one of them is a new J.J. Abrams show (Lost, Alias).

Fox schedules sci-fi and reality
J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon shows top new series

By James Hibberd
Hollywood Reporter

May 15, 2008, 11:01 AM

Sci-fi action dramas and hourlong reality shows populate Fox's schedule for next season, which includes new shows from top creative producers J.J. Abrams ("Lost") and Joss Whedon ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer").

Fox's lineup includes three new dramas, two comedies and an unscripted series. The network plans to once again launch its fall season earlier than most competitors. During the week of Aug. 25, Fox will air special two-hour premiere episodes of several series.

"Broadcast television needs a jolt," Fox entertainment chairman Peter Liguori said. "We feel it's our responsibility, as the No. 1 network for the last four seasons, to provide that electricity ... while some of the other networks are focusing on their ancillary platforms to save their programming, we really believe the better a series performs on the network, the better it will (serve advertisers)."

The network's upfront announcement contains more new shows for next season than any other broadcaster, though CBS still ranks as having the most freshman shows set to launch in the fall.

Fox will start its fall season with a two-hour "Prison Break" on Aug. 25. "Break" will then shift to 9 p.m. with the return of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" as its lead-in.

The Abrams thriller "Fringe," about a trio who explore paranormal mysteries, will have a two-hour premiere on Tuesday, Aug. 26. The show will then settle into its regular time period at 9 p.m. after "House." "We have high expectations for this," Reilly said. "We'll have huge campaign for it."

Although the season contains three dramas with sci-fi tones, Reilly said he's confident they can find broad audiences. "I don't think any of these are hard genre shows," he said.

Here is the complete fall 2008 TV schedule.



Desperate Housewives ends a very good season this Sunday with a 2 hour finale. Apparently they wrap up the Dana Delaney mystery with somebody dying and then the ending is supposed to have a huge twist.

'Desperate Housewives' gets serious for finale

By William Keck, USA TODAY

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — It is a bloody day on the set of ABC's Desperate Housewives as Katherine Mayfair's house of secrets finally comes crashing down in the two-hour season finale (Sunday, 9 p.m. ET/PT).

In a soundstage on the Universal Studios lot, Dana Delany (Katherine), Marcia Cross (Bree), Nathan Fillion (Katherine's estranged husband, Adam) and Gary Cole (Katherine's wacko ex, Wayne) are shooting the climax to Katherine's season-long mystery. And to be sure, this is no happy family reunion.

Some characters are tied up. Another has a gun. A sign of something sinister lies beneath the rug. And Adam's face is so bloodied (and swollen thanks to carefully applied prosthetics) that the actors are playfully calling Fillion "Frankenstein."

It is just before midnight, and the cast is still rehearsing a scene that will shoot well past 2 a.m.

Like many viewers, Cole has found himself perplexed by the mystery's wavy timeline and asks his co-stars, "Is this the room where it took place?"

By the end of this creepy sequence, a character will be dead and another will be gone for good. And by the end of the episode, an unusual twist will lead to a mass exodus of many cast members who have been on the show since Day 1.

Undaunted by the tragedies about to go down, Cross, dressed in a comfy bathrobe, is checking e-mail on her BlackBerry while exchanging giggles with Delany.

Setting up a mysterious flashback that takes Katherine back to Romania in 1996, Delany playfully waves her hands in front of her face and mimics the silly "doodly-doo, doodly-doo" flashback noises made famous by Mike Myers in his Wayne's World comedies.

This flashback will confirm what Katherine has long suggested — that she was the victim of domestic violence. "What Katherine goes through is so huge," Cross says. "It's definitely domestic violence, so I'm sure people will relate."

A much-needed bit of comic relief comes when the cast and crew learn that series creator Marc Cherry, on his way to the set to help choreograph this pivotal scene, has forgotten his studio ID and is not being allowed to pass through the security gates.

"Marc's the man, but the people with the power are the ones at the gate," Cross jokes. "A lot of times for me, I'll just roll down the window and show them my face, but to be the (faceless) creator is something different."

When Cherry finally arrives, he decides part of the scene is too complicated and makes a change. Then, looking over at Fillion, Cherry cracks, "You're not as pretty as you used to be."

Thursday, May 15th

Maxim is counting down the hottest 100 girls again. Here is #10, Ashley Tisdale.



Josh Hamilton is obviously a stud but was he worth Edison Vasquez who is tearing up the National League?

In freaky way, Josh is the Rangers' Natural

Randy Galloway
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

Having faced him in the other league a year ago, Texas Rangers pitcher Jason Jennings provided a spring training description of Josh Hamilton that was a blunt compliment:

"Freak of nature."

That quote quickly achieved national media legs.

Six weeks into the regular season, however, and you can also say this about Hamilton:

"Freak of natural."

I don't do mathematical research, but the numbers guys tell me that, thus far, the major league power numbers, particularly in the muscle crazy American League, have taken a staggering dip. Since the long ball sells tickets, some even call it an alarming decline when compared with just two years ago.

Oh, yeah. One other thing from our number geeks:

Pitchers suddenly aren't throwing with the same velocity.

Now, if I have to explain this, you obviously haven't been paying attention the past five years, and you also didn't read Jose's book, and you never double-dated with Roger Clemens.

It may take a few years, maybe a few decades, for the public to believe that God, genes and Gold's Gym are solely responsible when exceptional talent is on display in the majors.

But Hamilton showed up in Arlington this season, and I don't think it's too early to label him as the best overall talent in the Rangers' 36-plus years. Where it all eventually leads, we'll see. But I'm talking pure talent here. The sacred five-tool skills.

This we also know about those five tools: It's clean stuff, or as clean as drug testing allows any player in any sport to be these days.

Just an estimation, but no one playing any game is "tested" more than Hamilton. Three times a week, like clockwork, he must pause to whiz in a cup, and do whatever else it takes to prove he's using nothing stronger than sunflower seeds.

The Stars were able to stay alive and once again Mike Modano shined.

Another magic moment for Dallas Stars' Modano

01:14 AM CDT on Thursday, May 15, 2008
Tim Cowlishaw
Dallas Morning News

It was the 13th game-winning playoff goal of his career. It brought a thunderous roar. It kept the Stars' best season in eight years alive for at least three more days.

Mike Modano's power-play shot from the slot broke a third period tie, and Dallas held on for a 3-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings to mandate a Game 5 Saturday afternoon back at Joe Louis Arena.

"You hate to get swept," Modano said. "Having the lead for once finally in the whole series was exciting. I think it changed our feelings about things."

In the first three defeats, the Stars never led. They were only tied for 33 minutes, 7 seconds, so the Stars played from behind for more than two hours, 26 minutes in those losses.

The Stars finally gained their first lead of the series just 23 seconds before the end of the period when Loui Eriksson knocked in a deflected shot off the stick of Stephane Robidas.

That forced the Red Wings finally to play catchup.

It took them one shift and 49 seconds of the third period to do it.

But center Brad Richards was just finishing killing off a Red Wings power play minutes later when he drew a tripping penalty from Brian Rafalski. That gave the Stars their fifth opportunity of the night with the man advantage.

"Not only were they on the power play, but Detroit was getting some momentum off that power play," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "To kill that off, then get a power play of our own gave us a burst of energy. That's something that can carry you the final 20 minutes."

It took the Stars just 18 seconds to score on the power play, Modano whipping a shot past Chris Osgood from the high slot off a feed from – who else? – Sergei Zubov.

"We had been struggling a little on the power play because they've got some guys who are really good at anticipating and shutting down lanes," Modano said. "You don't get many second and third chances.

CBS announced their fall schedule yesterday. The biggest news was that they kept Old Christine and dumped Shark.

CBS returns to crime, comedy roots
'Christine' to launch expanded Monday sitcom block

By James Hibberd

May 14, 2008, 09:14 AM
Hollywood Reporter

Crime and comedy are coming back in full force to CBS' schedule next season as the network re-embraces the genres that have performed best for it in recent years.

After taking a creative detour in the fall with outside-the-box concepts such as singing gamblers and vampire detectives, CBS is adding new crime procedurals and opening up another night of comedy.

As expected, CBS will expand its successful Monday night sitcom lineup to Wednesdays. "The New Adventures of Old Christine," which the network renewed at the last minute on Tuesday, will launch the block. "Christine" is followed by newcomer "Project Gary," about a middle-class father who is played by Jay Mohr.

The network unveiled the schedule to reporters at its New York offices Wednesday morning.

"We really wanted to focus on comedy, and we had the goods to it this year," said CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler. "We've been looking to expand, to build out to another night. We have two of highest-testing new comedies we've had in years."

The network will also add newcomer "Worst Week," about an engaged couple, to its Monday night lineup, giving the show a lead-in from its top-rated comedy "Two and a Half Men." Unlike the rest of the Monday night lineup, "Week" is shot with a single-camera.

"There's no better place to launch a comedy on television than behind the No. 1 comedy on television," CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl said. "We want to give the new shows the best possible position to succeed."

The network's signature crime dramas will also have more company next season, though Tassler emphasized the procedurals will be more focused on character.

"We do very well with our procedurals, but we've added more character to them," Tassler said.

The dramas also will emphasize stronger female characters, with the female-driven "The Ex List" replacing "Moonlight" on Fridays and drama "The Unit" adding a new female character.

"Women drive network television," Tassler said. "Women watch our procedurals and comedies and we wanted to build on that. We've added more female faces to the network."

During the development processes, Tassler noted, the network looked at characters written as men and tried to see if they could be rewritten as women.

The new Chronicles of Narnia flick comes out tonight, Prince Caspian. Right now Rotten Tomatoes has it at 85% positive reviews. Here is a 3 star (out of 4) review from the USA Today.

'Prince Caspian' brings magic back to Narnia with epic sequel

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (* * * out of four) is an exhilarating fantasy adventure marred only by its length and protracted climactic battle scenes.

Fans of the first Narnia surely will enjoy this sequel, which is better made and more of an epic than 2005's first installment of Chronicles of Narnia, based on the popular series by C.S. Lewis.

The production design is lavish, the cinematography lovely and the world of woodland creatures beautifully crafted. It's just too bad that the computer-generated bands of warriors grow tedious and conjure memories of The Lord of the Rings, which managed those hugely choreographed clashes more adeptly than any movie in history.

Setting that aside, the quartet of children at the heart of the Narnia tales are engaging, and Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) is not only a heartthrob, he's perfect for the role of a noble prince being pushed out of the kingdom of the Telmarines by the power-mad King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto).

The film opens with the four Pevensie children back in England in drab school uniforms. Quickly, they are transported to a gorgeous and wondrous locale. They segue from trudging through a train station to frolicking in a turquoise sea, reminding us that though they are growing up, they still play like children. These enjoyable early scenes quickly lead them back to their royal roles in Narnia and embroil them in an adventure that tests their courage and, given Lewis' religious subtext, their faith.

Bruce played a charity show the other night in New Jersey and brought lots of tunes he hasn't done in a long time.

May 13 / The Stone Pony / Asbury Park, NJ

Notes: While the Magic tour is about to ramp up from arenas to stadiums, Bruce has been spending this break doing some serious downsizing -- last week it was the Count Basie Theatre, and last night it was all the way down to the Stone Pony. Bruce was back on the Pony stage for another school benefit on Tuesday night, once again backed by Bobby Bandiera's band (with horns), and joined by Southside Johnny and Patti Scialfa. By now we're familiar with the basics of the annual set-- classic covers like "634-5789," "Seven Nights to Rock," and "Twist and Shout" intermingling with houserockin' rave-ups from Bruce's own catalog -- this year clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes. "Hold On, I'm Coming" was a particular stand-out, with Bruce and Bobby doing their best Sam & Dave. Patti had a great turn on "It Takes Two," with Bobby shining on the guitar solo, and her vocal on "All I Have to Do is Dream" was another highlight. As for originals, "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" was added to the mix, and this private benefit for parents and teachers continues to bring out some otherwise oft-overlooked tracks. There was "Cover Me," "Rendezvous," "The Fever," "From Small Things," "Pink Cadillac," and an all-too-rare dip into the '92 songbook for "Man's Job." "Thunder Road" may not be a rarity, but try it played solo-electric in the intimate confines of the Pony -- ah, if only we all could -- as a small crowd sings along. Soundchecked but not played: "Sugar, Sugar," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."

Wednesday, May 14th

After spending 5 of the last 13 days at home, I've decided it's time to hit the road again, so there probably won't be much of an update tomorrow but I'll be back on Friday.



Missy Peragrym was in Heroes last year but this season (and now next season as well) she's Andi on Reaper.



Let's see Hank Blalock is playing 3rd base for the Rangers and they put together one of the worst April's in league history. He gets hurt, Ramon Vasquez steps in and the Rangers have won 13 of 18 and are now only 1 game under .500. Blalock will be back on Friday, is that the way the Rangers want to go?

Rangers turn a profit on adversity

Gil LeBreton
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

ARLINGTON -- Ho-hum. Another night, another Ranger-palooza.

Another four nominees for ESPN's play of the day.

Another winning series -- six in a row, the first time that's happened to the Texas Rangers in nine years.

The key date, lest we forget, is April 29. Since that date, the Rangers have won 11 of 14 games, including Tuesday night's 5-2 win over the fast-sinking Seattle Mariners.

Since April 29, the Rangers have gone from a stumbling 9-18 team, awash in presumed internal strife, to a spunky 20-21 bunch, brimming with confidence.

And, uh, one other thing.

Since April 29, third baseman Hank Blalock has been injured and out of the starting lineup.

A simple coincidence?

Stop it. Perish that cynical thought.

Baseball doesn't work that way. Teams are not supposed to get better when their starting players go on the disabled list.

Different, maybe. And sometimes they get younger.

But the idea that Blalock's hamstring injury and the Rangers' current hot streak are anything but a fortuitous coincidence is overreaching. And all Blalock has to do when he returns to the lineup, possibly as early as Friday, is prove it.

Otherwise, the Ramon Vazquez Fan Club will continue to grow.

Former Cowboy running back Troy Hambrick got sentenced to 5 years in prison yesterday.

Sadly, ex-Dallas Cowboy Hambrick never grew up

01:23 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Jean Jacques Taylor
Dallas Morning News

T-Ham – that's what we used to call Troy Hambrick – was one of my favorite players during his four seasons with the Cowboys.

He could make you laugh with the stories about his childhood in Lacoochee, Fla. And his teammates, for the most part, loved his sense of humor.

But he also had talent.

He rushed for 972 yards and five touchdowns in 2003, and owns one of the most prolific rushing performances in franchise history with a 189-yard game against Washington in 2003.

T-Ham, however, never grew up. And that's the primary reason the 31-year-old was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty Feb. 26 to one count of selling 50 grams or more of crack cocaine.

It's sad, really.

This 15 year old eighth grader has signed a commitment to play basketball at the University of Kentucky. Crazy, huh?

Eighth-grader is taking on a lot of pressure


Eric Sondheimer
Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2008

Having witnessed the immense pressure put on and attention paid to Taylor King after he committed to UCLA before the start of his freshman basketball season at Santa Ana Mater Dei, I have come to the conclusion that parents need to step in and just say, "No" when college coaches seek such early commitments.

Those commitments only raise expectations to an unrealistic level and aren't healthy or beneficial for the athlete, who is immediately and constantly subjected to media and fan scrutiny, denying him the opportunity to mature in a calm, controlled manner.

Now 15-year-old Michael Avery, a 6-foot-4 eighth-grader from Thousand Oaks, has put himself squarely in the cross-hairs of amateur talent evaluators by announcing earlier this month that he has committed to play basketball at Kentucky.

He made his college choice before choosing which high school to attend.

If he hadn't realized how his life would change after his choice became public, he was given a wake-up call when his phone began to ring off the hook.

"I'm getting a lot of phone calls I'm not used to," he said a couple days after his commitment.

The area code of many of those callers: 859, which happens to be Lexington, Ky.

Welcome to your brave new world, Mr. Avery.

"I know they really like basketball now," he said.

Why Kentucky Coach Billy Gillispie would offer a scholarship to an eighth-grader from the Conejo Valley based on his performance in one tournament last month in Ohio is a mystery that won't be solved until November 2011, which is when Avery can sign a letter of intent with the Wildcats. Only then will Gillispie be allowed to comment under NCAA rules.

Avery played for Belmont Shore in a travel tournament two weekends ago at USC's Galen Center, and he looked overmatched in his brief appearances playing against high school juniors and seniors. Anyone could have picked him out as the eighth-grader.

The problem is he'll never be compared with his fellow classmates. The moment he steps onto a court, people will envision him wearing a Kentucky uniform. It's a vision that doesn't fit right now, but that's the fallout of such an early commitment.

This is the week the networks announce their fall lineups. The writers strike made it near impossible for them to develop new shows, so this week isn't near the to do it normally is. Yesterday ABC and the CW announced their schedules, not too much to talk about really. ABC renewed Eli Stone which I'm happy about, they canceled Women's Murder Club which didn't make my wife happy. The CW didn't cancel anything we watch, which means Reaper is coming back, that's cool.

ABC lineup stays largely the same; CW moves to '90210'

By Gary Levin, USA TODAY

ABC unveiled its fall lineup Tuesday with few changes, just one new drama and one new reality series. Life on Mars, based on the British series, stars Jason O'Mara as a detective transported back to 1972. Opportunity Knocks, from Ashton Kutcher, transports a mobile game show to contestants' front lawns.

NBC's Scrubs will move to ABC for 18 episodes at midseason, filling Dancing With the Stars' Tuesday time slot, along with new animated series The Goode Family. The Bachelor also will sit out the fall until Boston Legal completes a final 13-episode season on Mondays. Also due Mondays at midseason: a beauty pageant series from Kutcher and Tyra Banks. Lost also is back for a 17-episode season early next year, probably on Thursdays.Among casualties, as expected: Men in Trees, October Road, Women's Murder Club, Big Shots, Cavemen and Carpoolers.

Green Day's side project, the Foxboro Hot Tubs is coming to Dallas on May 21st.

Green Day Jumps Back Into The Tub

Pollstar
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:07AM

Green Day's garage-rock alter-ego, Foxboro Hot Tubs, has announced a brief club run for later this month.

The trek kicks off May 19 at Juanita's Cantina in Little Rock, Ark., and wraps May 28 at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, Calif.

Other stops include One Eyed Jack's in New Orleans (May 20), Emo's in Austin (May 22), The Brick House in Phoenix (May 25) and The Roxy in Los Angeles (May 27).

Tickets, which are $20 cash with a two ticket maximum per person, will go onsale the day of the show at the venue box office exclusively.

Ozzfest is only playing Dallas this year and it will be headlined by Metallica.

Ozzfest Lands In Dallas

Pollstar

Ozzy Osbourne's iconic rock festival, Ozzfest, will make its debut as a one-day stadium event this year and, for the first time, will feature Metallica.

The all-day festival will take place August 9 at Pizza Hut Park, with more than a dozen bands playing on three stages.

The main stage lineup also includes System of a Down's Serj Tankian, Hellyeah, Korn's Jonathan Davis, Cavalera Conspiracy, Shadows Fall, Apocalyptica, In This Moment and an all-star tribute to late Pantera guitarist Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott.

Second stage acts include Sevendust, Devildriver, Kingdom of Sorrow, Soilent Green, Witchcraft and Goatwhore.

The third stage has been christened the Texas stage as "an homage to the many great metal bands that come from Texas" and features The Sword, Drowning Pool and Rigor Mortis.

Festival co-producer Sharon Osbourne promises making Ozzfest a one-day festival this year doesn't necessarily spell the end of a touring event.

Tuesday, May 13th

Here is an oldie but goodie, before Alyson Hannigan was Lily on How I Met Your Mother, she was Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Here is a shot from those days when she was the geeky friend of the slayer.



It appears hockey season in Dallas is just about over. The Stars got beat up pretty bad last night in a game Marty Turco would like to forget, quickly.

Stars' Turco has a Game 3 to forget

04:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Tim Cowlishaw
Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Stars got nearly everything they were seeking when the Western Conference finals shifted back to Dallas on Monday.

The fact that Detroit won, 5-2, suggests that maybe the Stars are looking for something that isn't out there.

They got the better scoring chances early, outshooting the Red Wings, 5-0, in the first few minutes. They got the Red Wings to take penalties, giving Dallas a seven-minute edge in power-play time.

They won 43 percent of the faceoffs, which may sound awful given that they were at home, but after winning 38 and 29 percent in Games 1 and 2, at least the Stars got to play with the puck a little more frequently.

And they limited the team that gets the most shots on goal to 21 shots, their fewest in the postseason by five.

But they lost, 5-2, because they didn't get one thing they have lacked in this series.

They didn't get stand-on-his-head goaltending from Marty Turco.

It was strange to see him looking so 2005 playoffs vulnerable in net here, the first game back at American Airlines Center since he delivered one of the best goaltending nights in Stars history. Turco stopped 61 of 62 shots against San Jose last week, allowing the Stars to advance to the conference finals with that four-overtime victory.

Turco stopped 16 of 21 shots Monday.

It was nothing like the Turco who outplayed Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere and San Jose's Evgeni Nabokov. Nothing at all.

The Rangers won in walk off fashion last night in a wacky 10 inning game. Kevin Sherrington says wackiness and the Rangers go hand in hand and Ron Washington is right in the heart of it at the moment.

Washington gets dose of Texas Rangers wackiness

02:04 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Kevin Sherrington
Dallas Morning News

In the relatively brief yet semi-sordid history of the Texas Rangers, an owner once fired a manager and then asked him to hang around a few days; a manager quit after 24 hours on the job, and still another owner proudly declared that he'd fire his mother to get the man he wanted.

To this assortment of oddities we submit the tale of Ron Washington's last couple of weeks.

Or as it was almost officially labeled: In One Era and Out the Other.

First, a seven-game losing streak caps an absolutely horrific month of baseball, and the team president all but guarantees some sort of action to prevent the fan base from eroding "any farther than it has."

Next thing you know, the Rangers win 12 of their next 17, a span in which the pitchers put up 33 consecutive zeroes, second-best in club history.

The general manager's reaction to the turnaround? The manager is safe at least until the All-Star break.

And, oh, yes, there remains the distinct possibility that the manager's job was saved, at least temporarily, by his birthday.

You couldn't hardly make this stuff up. Or as Washington summed up his situation before Monday's win over Seattle:

"I've been on teams where things are volatile, but I've never been in a position where I was in charge of the volatility."

T.O. thinks he can help Pac Man reform. Huh, not sure he's the guy I'd choose to mentor the new Cowboys corner back but nobody asked for my recommendation.

T.O. offers counsel to latest wayward Dallas Cowboys player

By CLARENCE E. HILL JR.
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

IRVING -- Count wide receiver Terrell Owens as a Dallas Cowboys teammate who plans to welcome suspended cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones with opens arms and a clean slate.

And if and when Jones is reinstated to the NFL by commissioner Roger Goodell, Owens offers this advice: Don't try to repair your image all in one day and with one big play.

Jones was suspended before last season for repeated violations of the NFL's personal conduct policy when he was a member of the Tennessee Titans. He was acquired by the Cowboys in a trade last month.

"Don't go out and try to do too much right away," Owens said. "It's understandable. You want to come in and try to erase people's mind-set and play fantastic. But that can get disastrous if you try to overdo it."

Owens, in addition to playing a counselor in the Cowboys' locker room, will make his sitcom acting debut on the MyNetworkTV show Under One Roof Wednesday night.

He said he is qualified to offer the word of warning to Jones because Owens has been through it, coming to the Cowboys two years ago after being unceremoniously dumped in Philadelphia and accused of being a locker room problem. He came to Dallas focused on proving he was a better person and better teammate while also making superstar plays on the field. Although he led the Cowboys with 85 catches and 13 touchdowns, his season was marred by injuries, a controversial accidental overdose and a league-high 17 dropped passes.

Owens shared his story last season with former Chicago Bears defensive tackle Terry "Tank" Johnson. Johnson was in the midst of an eight-game suspension for violating the league's personal conduct policy when he signed with the Cowboys.

Hey, Danny don't read this next story.

In Kenya, Violence Shakes Running Community

By JERÉ LONGMAN
New York Times
Published: May 13, 2008

ELDORET, Kenya — When Luke Kibet won the world marathon championship last August, he became a favorite to achieve what no Kenyan has despite this country’s distance-running brilliance — an Olympic gold medal in the 26.2-mile race.

The post-election strife left about 1,200 people dead, including the 1988 Olympian Lucas Sang, and forced several hundred thousand to flee.

With the Summer Games in Beijing approaching in August, though, Kibet’s Olympic hopes have grown remote. He and many of Kenya’s majestic runners — including dozens of Olympic contenders — had their lives disrupted by the ethnic violence that followed a disputed presidential election last December. About 1,200 people were killed, and several hundred thousand fled their homes.

Among those killed were Lucas Sang, a quarter-miler who competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics, and Wesley Ngetich, an elite marathon runner. On Dec. 31, during rioting here in the Rift Valley, Kibet was hit in the head with a stone and knocked unconscious. He sustained a concussion and stopped training for two weeks. In February, he pulled out a pistol to extricate himself from another potential attack.

Kibet said these events left him traumatized, unable to focus on his training. Then he pulled a hamstring, the direct result, he says, of interrupted training. Last month, Kibet finished a disappointing 11th at the London Marathon — seven minutes off the pace.

He has been named an alternate to the Kenyan Olympic marathon team, but his chance of competing in Beijing will now depend on whether another runner drops out.

“When you see people die, it stays in your mind,” Kibet, 25, said at his home.

The workout regimens of many of Kenya’s elite runners were disrupted in January and February. Some runners received death threats. Many remained indoors for a week or more, afraid to leave their homes. Others left the country to train in more hospitable environments.

Meanwhile, the reputation of the country’s runners as peaceful ambassadors was also dealt a blow. An international monitoring agency reported in February that some Kenyan runners, many with military backgrounds, might have participated in the violence, and could have lent financial aid and transportation assistance to tribal militias.

The chaos has since abated. In mid-April, the government formed a national unity cabinet. Yet it is too soon to know whether the ethnic strife and training disruptions will affect Kenya’s medal chances at the Beijing Olympics.

Monday, May 12th

Not sure who the girl on the left is but the girl on the right is Sophie Howard. Other than that, don't have much to tell you about her, I'm guessing she (they?) is british but that's the best I can do.



Ron Washington has saved his job by the hair on his chinny chin chin as the Rangers have played very well the past week or two. The question is, is that the best thing for the Rangers?

Will Rangers manage to mess it up again?

Ft. Worth Star Telegram
Randy Galloway

Scanning the job security situation in local jockdom, there's some weirdness to consider.

The Mavericks ousted Avery Johnson and now they have hired Avery Johnson. The new guy goes by a different name, but his NBA rap sheet says he's accused of the exact alleged basketball sins that made Avery unacceptable to the Cubans.

The Cowboys, of course, have the head coach in waiting peering daily over the shoulder of the seated head coach.

Meanwhile, the Rangers have in the dugout a dead-skipper-still-walking two seasons into his expected burial, and a manager who last week received one of the strangest "vote of confidence" messages ever uttered anywhere.

Ron Washington, we were told, might or might not have his job security addressed "at the All-Star break [mid-July]."

Congratulations, Mr. Washington. You will survive Mother's Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Father's Day and Independence Day.

Frankly, I'm shocked Washington wasn't gone by May Day.

Owner Tom Hicks admitted last week on Babe Laufenberg's Channel 11 show that a managerial firing had been "very close." By the way, it still is. One long losing streak, even before July, and he can be whacked.

If I'm Ron, however, I'm insulted enough to tell the guy behind that All-Star game quote, general manager Jon Daniels, where to stick it. But that's one of Ron's problems. Apparently, he doesn't tell Daniels where to stick it.

Daniels, for the record, has already admitted he doesn't have the final say on Washington's job. Nolan Ryan will make that call, and while Nolan's patience has been tested, there figures to be a good reason he's moving slowly on Washington, particularly after a gruesome April for the Rangers.

Tony Romo threw out the first pitch at the Cubs game yesterday and led the crowd in Take Me Out To the Ballgame. Oy, that was a mistake. You can watch it here.



Cellphones are everywhere of course these days but should they be allowed at concerts? I find the glowing lights instead of bics to be kinda cool but apparently the artists aren't big fans.

Are cellphones ruining the concert experience?

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, May 11, 2008

By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News
tchristensen@dallasnews.com

What if you gave a concert and the crowd refused to watch?

It's not as far-fetched as it seems. As more and more concertgoers fiddle with cellphone cameras and fidget with BlackBerries, some people say mobile technology is ruining the concert experience.

"It's extraordinarily irritating," says Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame. "All these people holding up these horrid little squares of bright light."

"It's like they're not even there," says jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. "It's like, 'Why don't you put that away and listen to the music?' "

"It drives me crazy," says singer Steve Earle. "They have their use, but there's definitely a price to pay."

It's not just a case of cranky baby boomers griping about the young and the restless. Plenty of younger artists and fans are also getting fed up with the tech intrusion.

"If everyone's taking pictures, it's annoying. It takes away from the show," says 18-year-old Natalya Geremesz at Kanye West's recent Dallas concert.

"As a performer, it's frustrating to look out and see a sea of cellphones instead of faces," says Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein.

"There's definitely a problem where people are so busy documenting the moment that they forget to just live in the moment."

Of course, pop concerts were awash in distractions long before the cellphone. In the early '60s, shrieking girls made it impossible to hear the Beatles perform. In the '90s, mosh pits made going to concerts a contact sport.

"You never expect 100 percent of people's attention," says rapper Ice Cube. "You learn to take 80 percent."

But the levels seem to be rapidly shrinking thanks to "microboredom," a term invented by – who else – a cellphone company to convince people they need to escape reality with their mobile gadgets.

At concerts, microboredom usually means fans snapping dozens of photos of the band, the crowd and the stage lights. The ultimate disconnect comes when they take pictures of the pictures on the video screen.

"Everyone has this strange archiving addiction now. It's like they're trying to pin a butterfly to a corkboard," says Canadian singer Feist.

The new Indiana Jones flick is still a few weeks away and hasn't had a public screening yet but early reviews are starting to come in and they are pretty mixed on the flick.

'Indiana Jones' gets mixed reviews on the Web

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
Indiana Jones has yet to meet a foe he couldn't vanquish.

He never has had to face the wrath of cyberspace, though. And that's of course where the first shots at the intrepid archaeologist's new film have been fired.

Reviews of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull began cropping up on the Internet late last week, leaving Paramount Pictures and tight-lipped director Steven Spielberg pleading with reviewers to not spoil key plot points of the franchise's fourth installment. It arrives May 22.

The movie isn't scheduled to be publicly seen until Sunday, at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. But studio and theater-owner screenings have opened the door to anonymous online posts.

And so far, the reviews have been mixed. Some have appeared on aintitcoolnews.com, including one that opines that the movie suffers from predictable plot points and cheesy special effects.

Saturday, May 10th

Been home for a whole day, must mean it's time to head out of town again. We are going to East Texas today to celebrate my sister's 35th birthday with her today. Man, she's old. We'll be back tomorrow in time to take the wife's mother out for mom's day. Rest? Who needs that?



Pathetic Plea For Attention #87 is online now and you can listen to it here. Or you can click the subscribe to podcast button on the right, click iTunes and it will download automatically for you every time I post a new one.



Here is Nicki Aycox, I'm pretty sure she has played the bad girl sister is some show I watch, it might have been Ed. Not sure. Apparently she is having issues with her shirt.


The friggin Rangers were about to get written off in even my book about 2 weeks ago. Now they just won't lose and I'm starting to dream about October baseball. I know I need to slow that train down and just dream about .500 but hey, I can't help it.

Zeroed in: Texas Rangers' staff hurls 3rd straight shutout, 4-0

12:42 AM CDT on Saturday, May 10, 2008

By RICHARD DURRETT / The Dallas Morning News
rdurrett@dallasnews.com

ARLINGTON – The Rangers' pitching staff hasn't strung this many zeroes together since Ronald Reagan's presidency was barely three months old.

The streak stands at 31 scoreless innings and counting after the club notched its third consecutive shutout Friday, a 4-0 win over Oakland. The Rangers have won four straight and 10 of their last 14 games.

The shutout stretch is the second-longest in club history, bettered only in the final four days of April 1981. Then, when gas prices averaged $1.38 a gallon, the Rangers had four consecutive shutouts and went 39 straight innings without allowing a run.

Scott Feldman, who wasn't born until 1982, kept the streak going with six strong innings Friday. He walked four batters in the first two innings, but he corrected some faulty mechanics, found his command and made key pitches when he needed to. Jamey Wright, Joaquin Benoit and C.J. Wilson each pitched an inning to close the deal. Texas is the first team since Florida in 2005 with three consecutive shutouts.

"Good pitching is contagious," Wright said. "You want to pitch in those situations and keep the momentum going."

It's up to Kevin Millwood to do that tonight. He can't remember three games with pitching this good since he was a member of the vaunted Braves rotation in the late 1990s that included Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Greg Maddux.

"Everybody in here is talented enough to do it," Millwood said. "My goal is to try to keep the good pitching going and not worry about shutouts."

The Mavs have a new coach. Sounds like he's the same as the old coach. Kinda puzzling if you ask me.

Source: Dallas Mavericks reach deal with Rick Carlisle to be head coach

By Jeff Caplan
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

After days of wrangling over contract details, the Dallas Mavericks reached an oral agreement with Rick Carlisle on Friday night to become the club's new head coach, a source confirmed.

The source said the four-year contract is worth more than $4 million a season -- slightly more than former coach Avery Johnson's per-season salary -- and would be signed by late Friday or today. A news conference to formally introduce Carlisle as the franchise's ninth head coach probably won't be held until Wednesday, the source said, because of Carlisle's duties as an analyst for ESPN.

Carlisle, 48, is set to begin his third stint as a head coach in the NBA and first in the Western Conference. Although he's inheriting perennial All-Stars Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, the Mavs are coming off a second consecutive first-round playoff exit.

Known as an intelligent coach with superb strategic skills, Carlisle's greatest challenges will be to sharpen his communication skills with players and to loosen his typically structured offense for Kidd.

The Mavs had anticipated a Friday news conference to introduce Carlisle, but negotiations slowed to the point that by Friday evening it seemed as if the process would drag into the weekend.

Carlisle is expected to bring in his own staff. They will take over a team that has eight players under contract at more than $80 million next season, well over the salary cap. That leaves seven spots to be filled with limited financial maneuverability.

Friday, May 9th

I'm back at home after just about a week or so. Does it surprise anyone that the 2 hour time change kicked my butt last night and made it damn near impossible to go to sleep. Well, that and the fact that as I was starting to doze off the Rangers get into a bench clearing brawl that got the blood pumping.



Alyssa Milano has been on My Name is Earl the past few weeks. Too bad she has a new show coming in the fall, meaning her and Earl will be breaking up soon.



I agreed with a very upset Tom Grieve, it was ridiculous. The pitch that sent Richie Sexon to the mound was over the plate. It was high but it was over the plate. So, then he charges the mound for no reason and then he threw his helmet at the pitcher. It was quite entertaining.

Bench-clearing brawl overshadows Rangers' win over Mariners

By JEFF WILSON
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

SEATTLE — The two-run homer Ian Kinsler hit in the second inning Thursday night seemed harmless enough, though it put the Seattle Mariners’ dormant offense in a four-run hole it wouldn’t be able to erase.

But the Texas Rangers’ second baseman was hit above the left elbow during his next at-bat in the fourth inning, and Mariners first baseman Richie Sexson believed the Rangers would retaliate.

So, when the 6-foot-8 saw an eye-high fastball from Kason Gabbard in the bottom of the inning, he said he became filled with rage.

Just imagine the emotions he would have felt had the ball actually hit him.

The pitch was at least 18 inches from touching him, but he charged the mound anyway. The ensuing bench-clearing brawl became the main event during a 5-0 Rangers victory at Safeco Field.

The Rangers claimed afterward that Gabbard was not throwing at Sexson in retaliation for two plunked Rangers, most notably Kinsler.

“We don’t throw at people’s head,” manager Ron Washington said. “If you go back and look at the replay, Gabbard was nowhere near Sexson. If we had wanted to hit him, we would have hit him.”

Sexson said it was obvious that Gabbard was seeking revenge.

“Everybody in the ballpark knew what was going on there,” Sexson said. “Throw a pitch up around my head, I’m not going to deal with that. It’s the wrong way to play baseball.”

That saga overshadowed the Rangers’ third consecutive win, which prolonged the Mariners’ spiral down the AL West standings.

Here is a story on the same brawl from the Seattle papers.

M's brawl, but get shut out for second night in row

By DAVID ANDRIESEN
SEATTLE P-I REPORTER

Among motivational tools, the bench-clearing brawl is not recommended as the first option.

But when all else fails -- and with the Mariners, all else has -- sometimes a little pugilistic bonding is worth a try.

On a night when they yet again failed to show any offense, the Mariners did show some fight Thursday night, engaging the Rangers in an angry pileup on the way to a 5-0 defeat at Safeco Field.

It was the eighth loss in nine games for the Mariners, who got just four hits and were shut out for the second night in a row. They have scored just one run in the past 32 innings and have been shut out for 22 consecutive innings.

Tensions began when Mariners starter Felix Hernandez hit two Rangers with pitches. Catcher Gerald Laird was hit in the elbow in the second inning, then second baseman Ian Kinsler, who had hit a two-run homer in his previous at-bat, took one in the back in the fourth. Kinsler momentarily glared at Hernandez, then jawed with catcher Kenji Johjima as he headed for first.

In the bottom of the inning, the first pitch to Richie Sexson was head high -- though on the inside edge of the plate -- and Sexson immediately flung his bat and charged Rangers pitcher Kason Gabbard. Sexson removed his helmet on the way to the mound and threw it at a ducking Gabbard, who was struck in the back.

Sexson jumped on Gabbard and appeared to attempt to land a couple of punches before Laird piled on, followed by the Texas infield and within seconds the contents of both dugouts and bullpens.

Sexson said he fully expected to get hit, given what had transpired and the fact that there were two out with the bases empty, but it was the location that angered him.

"I know the situation there, and he should throw below the shoulder," Sexson said. "But the face? No one should do that.

"Throwing the helmet was not good. I know that's not the right way to do it, but at that time I lost it."

Texas manager Ron Washington, not surprisingly, was not happy.

"We got two hitters hit, and if you go look at that replay, Gabbard was nowhere near Sexson's head," Washington said. "I guess he was just frustrated and things got out of control. ... Sexson overreacted. If we'd have wanted to hit him, we'd have hit him."

"I thought (throwing the helmet) was (expletive). How tall is he, 6-feet-13? And you go run out there on a little guy and throw a helmet. That's just frustration. The guy is a competitor and he got frustrated."

"I was kind of surprised," Laird said. "He caught me off guard a little bit. I didn't think the ball was that close to him. It was fairly over the plate, just up in the zone. ... I think he reacted to the height of the ball, not the location."

What happens when the newspapers go out of business because everyone is getting their news on the internet?

Who'll gather news when Internet is all that there is?

Times have changed in the newspaper world and the future is uncertain. It will be sad if sports fans can't get all they deserve.

By PATRICK REUSSE
Minneapolis Star Tribune

June 5. We'll make that. That will be 20 years since my first column appeared in the Star Tribune.

The subject was Dennis Eckersley. He had started the season as a reclamation project in Oakland's bullpen, and now was early into a run as a closer that would take him to the Hall of Fame.

Four weeks from today. We'll make that standing up here at 425 Portland Av.

The deal is, we like round numbers and anniversaries in sports departments. And there's another off in the distance. Labor Day.

Seventeen weeks, four days from today. If we make that with a Carlos Gomez belly slide around the tag, that will be 40 years as a Twin Cities sportswriter.

Labor Day night, 1968. Layout editor Roger Rosenblum was sitting in the slot on the St. Paul Pioneer Press sports desk. And that's what it was -- a slot cut several feet at one end into an extra-large desk, so Rosenblum could reach across and drop an article in front of whatever copyreader he so chose.

Barry Bonds finally has some company in baseball's doghouse.

Brothers in alienation: Bonds and Clemens

Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle

(05-07) 19:33 PDT --

This is the summer of their discontent.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are secret-handshake brothers in a two-man fraternity.

They sit in their respective estates, stewing in their own juices, cooling their heels, lying in the beds they've made, and hold on while I try to think of another idiom to complete this cliche grand slam. Twiddling their thumbs in the same boat? Good enough.

Neither man has retired, yet neither is playing, and it's the most intriguing story of the baseball season.

Clemens apparently was planning to pitch this season but pulled himself off the market, such as it is, out of spite. He swore he never touched steroids, and when not enough fans and media believed him, he said, "I'll show you." And he did, though he still might come back, just to show us again.

Bonds is as retired as Hugh Hefner. Barry keeps his bats in the umbrella stand next to his front door and his Batmobile idling outside. But nobody phones. The players' union is sniffing for signs of collusion.

I hope Bonds and Clemens both get a chance to play this season. I love a good carnival side show. Besides, if baseball is going to start blackballing players because of personal problems or character defects, it's going to suck the life out of the game.

Whatever Bonds and Clemens do, I hope they do it together. They are a well-balanced ticket - pitcher and hitter, black and white.

Clemens coming under fire from the media and fans in recent months has weakened the argument that Bonds has been the media's steroid target because he's a black man.

McCain goes on the Daily Show and says he might have Dwight Schrute as his running mate. I wish when I heard that I didn't think to myself, I think I'd vote for that ticket.

McCain/Schrute 2008? Candidate cracks wise on 'Daily Show'

NEW YORK (AP) — Of the Democratic presidential candidates, would Republican John McCain rather take on Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton?

"You know, Ron Paul is still in the race," McCain joked Wednesday during a taping of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

McCain deadpanned about the marathon race between the Democrats: "I hate to watch it. It's terrible. My heart goes out to them."

During the taping, McCain pretended to walk off the set when Stewart pressed him on whether President Bush is more of a liability for him than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is for Obama. Then McCain fiddled with his microphone and mouthed "technical difficulties" into the camera.

The all-but-certain Republican nominee did reveal a few tidbits. His Secret Service code name, he thinks, "is 'Jerk,'" and his choice for a vice presidential running mate is Dwight Schrute, a character on the NBC sitcom, The Office, played by Rainn Wilson.

Thursday, May 8th

Flying home today, so not much of an update again today but should be back with a full one at the normal time tomorrow.



Today we go stylish with a black and white photo of Bar Refaeli. Isn't it classy?



AMC renews the very good Breaking Bad for a 2nd season.

'Breaking Bad' good for another season
AMC orders 13 more episodes

By Kimberly Nordyke

May 7, 2008, 02:15 PM
Hollywood Reporter

"Breaking Bad"
AMC has renewed "Breaking Bad" for a second season.

The cable network ordered 13 new episodes of the Sony Pictures TV-produced series, starring Bryan Cranston as a chemistry teacher who begins cooking up crystal meth to make some extra money after he is diagnosed with cancer.

The renewal of "Breaking Bad," AMC's second original drama series after "Mad Men," has been buzzed about for months but only officially confirmed Wednesday.

Last night Bruce and the band played a benefit show in a small theater. The cool thing is that they played Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born to Run in their entirety.

Darkness and Born to Run in their entirety at the Basie, May 7

Ah, the stuff that dreams are made of... or at least the stuff that fan rap sessions are made of: "They should do the Darkness album start to finish!" Well, they just did, at the 1,500-seat Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ. And it wasn't just a Darkness 30th anniversary celebration -- Bruce and the E Street band tackled the full Born to Run album in order, too, for what he described at the outset as "something we've never done before and you're not gonna see anywhere else." An E Street Band theater show -- finding them packed tighter than ever on a small stage like this, with Nils, Patti, and Soozie all added to the line-up since the theater days -- would have been exceptional enough, but the four Perfect Album Sides of the setlist put this one over the top.

The evening began with the Basie's Rusty Young describing the benefit show's mission, to raise money for the restoration of this 80-year-old theater to its original glory -- "when the ceiling wasn't covered in netting" -- and this night alone brought in more than three million dollars. Young noted that Patti Scialfa is the "honorary co-chair of our capital campaign," and after he asked her for ideas... "tonight is her answer." Generous donations also made it possible, Young said, for 37 wounded veterans to attend the show, talking the bus in from Walter Reed.

Patti came out next to a mighty standing ovation -- "I'm supposed to welcome you, and you're welcoming me!" -- speaking of her and the rest of the band's history at the Basie, and of the importance of saving venues like this one. She was followed by NBC anchor Brian Williams, who goes back a long way as a fan and was clearly psyched just to be talking through Springsteen's mic ("the first and last time that will ever happen"). He recalled hitting the Stone Pony and the Tradewinds back in the day, ever on Bruce-watch; he also touched on the recent loss of Danny Federici, saying that "Great families endure. And great, great bands endure." "The netting is just to keep the larger pieces of debris from falling down," he added, "and if there's an entity that could cause the big ones to fall, it's this group here.... Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band!"

And with that, it was Darkness, side one, to start the show. "We're gonna start with Darkness, so we don't send you home suicidal!" Bruce quickly aborted "Badlands" seconds in, after a rough start: "We fucked it up already! I knew there was a reason why we didn't do this," he laughed. "Maybe we shouldn't do it!" But they did it. And man, they did it. From track to track, for the first time live, it was Darkness sequenced as Bruce originally intended it to be heard, full of intensity from the howls on "Something in the Night" to the seemingly never-ending coda of "Racing in the Street," a straight-ahead "Factory" (not the Bruce/Patti duet of recent years) with Steve on mandolin, the modern twist on "Prove It All Night" as Nils rocked the new solo, and at the end of "side two," a hugely powerful vocal on the title track. Loads of guitar from Springsteen, too -- every solo except that Nils spectacular, in fact. Bruce offered a solo to Steve at one point, which was respectfully declined.

Wednesday, May 7th

Getting ready to start the last full day here in the Bay area. We will be flying home tomorrow. I'm ready for that.



Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka wants to show you her eyes.

It appears the Cowboys are finally getting ready to tell me how bad they want to bleed me dry for tickets in the new stadium.

Cowboys to release prices for other seats soon

10:38 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 6, 2008

By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
jmosier@dallasnews.com

The Dallas Cowboys plan to announce how many of the 15,000 club seats have been sold at the new stadium and the pricing structure for the remaining seats within the next two weeks, team vice president Stephen Jones said Tuesday.

Team officials have said they would have a variety of ticket prices, but only the high-dollar seats have gone on sale. The team started selling personal seat licenses – ranging from $16,000 to $150,000 each – in November for the best seats at the $1.1 billion stadium in Arlington.

Although these are the most expensive seat licenses in the NFL, Cowboys officials have repeatedly said that sales have been strong.

"We don't see any letup [in sales] as far as the economy is concerned," Mr. Jones said at the Southern Methodist University Cox Ernst & Young Management Briefing Series at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas.

Cowboys officials said in March that about 8,000 of the high-end seats have been sold through the 30-year personal seat licenses. They haven't updated that figure since then.

The club seats cost $340 per game on top of the license fee.

Tuesday, May 6th

Greetings once again from San Francisco.



My latest blog has been posted at JT the Brick's site, you can read it here.



British model Keeley Hazel makes me wonder when HBO will be showing that fight?

The Cowboys are going to be on HBO's Hard Knocks again.

Source: Dallas Cowboys deal with HBO 'imminent'

02:59 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 6, 2008

By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News
cwatkins@dallasnews.com

The Dallas Cowboys are not only going back to California for training camp, they are expected to once again invite HBO to broadcast their every move.

A deal is "imminent" that will allow NFL Films to film five to six weeks of training camp in Oxnard, Calif. and air it on the HBO show Hard Knocks, according to a source.

Training camp opens in late July. Last season, the Cowboys held training camp in San Antonio.

The last time the Cowboys were on Hard Knocks was 2002, when they finished 5-11. It was Dave Campo's last season as coach.

HBO has aired Hard Knocks three times.

The Mavs look to be hiring Rick Carlisle, a guy who has been fired twice from good teams who couldn't get it done in the playoffs.

Mavs may be on verge of hiring another Avery

Ft. Worth Star Telegram
Jim Reeves

There's a story going around the NBA about a coach who was such a micro-manager, he once jumped off the bench as his team raced downcourt on a clean fastbreak and screamed "Slow it up!"

He wanted them to run one of his set plays, you see.

Avery Johnson?

Nope, Rick Carlisle.

Two different coaches. Same coaching world.

Now ask yourself, is this the guy who can get the most out of the Dallas Mavericks next season?

This is what scares me. Is Carlisle, reportedly in deep negotiations with the Mavs to become Johnson's replacement, simply another helping from the same pot of gumbo?

Because we need to get serious about this: Next season is what matters here.

That window of opportunity everyone seems so sure has already slammed shut is actually still open, but just a sliver. One season, Jason Kidd's last under contract, is what the Mavs have left before it's start-over time.

We'll worry about the future after that. But the Mavs should have one more run at this thing -- with the way the roster is set up, it's about all they can hope for -- and they'd better hire a coach who has the same type of urgency. Maybe Carlisle is that guy. His NBA coaching pedigree certainly isn't shabby.

He did, after all, take the Pacers to 61 victories and the Eastern Conference Finals in his first year there. Before that, he'd turned around a losing culture in Detroit and produced back-to-back 50-win seasons and another trip to the conference finals with a less-than-impressive roster.

Monday, May 5th

Well, it's very late in the day for an update from San Francisco but it's been a busy few days here by the bay. We did get to go to the Rangers/A's game on Saturday (thanks Dennis) and of course you can't beat the food out here. I'm busy working but the wife is getting plenty of sight seeing in which is good.



Tanya Roberts is some hottie from Europe.



Here is the Roger Clemens interview with the Houston Chronicle that is keeping ESPN busy today.

Clemens regrets personal 'mistakes'

He apologizes to family and again denies using steroids

By JOSE DE JESUS ORTIZ
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

In his first comments since a tabloid linked him to extramarital affairs last week, Roger Clemens on Sunday acknowledged making "mistakes" in his personal life. For those mistakes, he apologized to his family and the public, but the seven-time Cy Young Award winner remained steadfast in his denials that he has used steroids or human growth hormone.

"I know that many people want to know what I have to say about the recent articles in the media," Clemens, who has raised his four children with his wife, Debbie, in the Katy and Memorial areas, said in a statement to the Houston Chronicle. "Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry. I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right."

While not admitting to any specific mistakes, Clemens did remain adamant that he never used steroids or HGH. He has been fighting to clear his name since Dec. 13, when he was implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the report former Sen. George Mitchell prepared for Major League Baseball.

"I believe my personal life has nothing to do with the accusations of steroid and HGH use," he said in the statement. "I have already made clear that I did not use them."

Denies McCready story

Clemens also addressed the notion that he may have started an improper relationship with country singer Mindy McCready when she was 15.

Citing numerous anonymous sources, the New York Daily News reported last week that Clemens began his relationship with McCready when she was 15.

The tabloid claimed Clemens "carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two."

In his statement, Clemens addressed the McCready story.

"Now, I have been accused of having an improper relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Nothing could be further from the truth. This relationship has been twisted and distorted far beyond reality. It is just one of many, many accusations that are utterly false."

McCready, however, told the Daily News that she "cannot refute anything in the story" about her relationship with Clemens.

The Stars put away the Sharks last night. 4 OT's. Wow. Being on the west coast I was still awake when the game ended at 11:24 here, not sure if I would have been at 1:24 back home. The MVP is obviously the goalie, Marty Turco.

Stand-up act: Turco saves Dallas Stars' night

06:16 AM CDT on Monday, May 5, 2008

Tim Cowlishaw
Dallas Morning News

The San Jose Sharks didn't want to leave. But the Dallas Stars stubbornly refused to let them stay around for one more game.

Captain Brenden Morrow redirected a pass from Stephane Robidas past Evgeni Nabokov for a power-play goal 9:03 deep into the fourth overtime Sunday night to lift the Stars to a 2-1 series-clinching victory over San Jose.

Morrow got the goal, but the biggest winner on the ice had to be Marty Turco.

Through 6 ½ periods – more than two full games – Turco stopped 61 of 62 San Jose shots. The Sharks' one goal came on a nearly unstoppable shot by Ryan Clowe.

If you had to score this like a fight, the Sharks would have won a close decision on points both in regulation (where they outshot the Stars 31-23) or the second game (30-26 in first three overtimes).

The Sharks, whose heart really should never be questioned again, faced an elimination game for the third time. This is a team that simply refused to leave center stage.

Turco and the Stars carried a 1-0 lead into the third period and, just as in Game 5, they were 20 minutes away from a trip to the Western Conference Finals to play the Detroit Red Wings, who have to be loving the overtimes in this series.

San Jose avoided regulation elimination when winger Ryane Clowe caught a puck near the right faceoff circle and whipped a shot over Turco's left shoulder 1:39 into the third period.

Bruce finished the US arena tour on Friday in Ft. Lauderdale. He has one more "theater" show this week in New Jersey then it's off the Europe later in the month. you can see the summary and setlist from the Ft. Lauderdale show here.

May 2 / Ft. Lauderdale, FL / Bank Atlantic Center

Notes: With this their seventh Magic show in the less than two weeks since Danny Federici's death, Springsteen and the E Street Band have made it to the end of the spring leg in fine style. Wrapping things up at the rescheduled Ft. Lauderdale show, energy was back up after a little dip in Charlottesville, with the band on top of their game tonight.

The tour premieres keep coming, with "I Wanna Be With You" getting its first outing for an audience that was worthy of the sentiment -- a tremendous crowd. While "Streets of Fire" has inexplicably remained unplayed since Milwaukee, despite numerous appearences on the handwritten setlist for this recent stretch, "This Hard Land" made good on recent setlist teasers and was great to hear.

A long story before "Growin' Up" was about Danny's love for CB Radio -- "a really, really crude version of a localized internet," Bruce observed. In '69, Springsteen's parents moved out to California, and on the same day, the band moved in. Danny, Clarence, Mad Dog, and Garry -- that lasted exactly 30 days, Bruce said, before the landlord kicked them out. But while they were there, Mad Dog kicked out the window on the second floor so he and Danny could go up to the roof and mess around on the CB -- Bruce said he'd come home and find "a lot of truckers sitting in the living room."

Saturday, May 3rd

Pathetic Plea for Attention #86 is online and you can hear it here. If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast so that it comes automatically and you can put it on your iPod, it's real easy to do now. Click the subscribe to Podcast button on the right of this main page, then click iTunes. It will do the rest.




This chick Whitney Albey is in some new horror flick I haven't heard of - All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.



I do kinda like the Michael Irvin show. I can't stand his co-host Kevin Kiley but Irvin is pretty good. I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Michael Irvin finding a comfort zone on radio

08:31 PM CDT on Friday, May 2, 2008
Barry Horn
Dallas Morning News

Used to be that Michael Irvin could go to a neighborhood health club and enjoy relative serenity. But then, all he used to be was a lightning rod wide receiver on a three-time Super Bowl champion who would evolve into a big-time ESPN television analyst.

These days, even the steam room offers no sanctuary from inquiring minds who want to know.

"People are more interested in talking to Michael Irvin now than when he was a player," Irvin said, offering a smidge of third-person insight. "They want to respond to something they heard me say. They know my opinion or want to know my opinion on something else, and they want me to know theirs."

Such is life when Michael Irvin is a local sports talk show host with the most famous face on the radio dial.

The reason for the increased connect is logical. Most people believe players live in their own world and don't want to be bothered. (Most people are correct.) Approaching a player of Irvin's stature carries the possibility of rejection. Talk show hosts – good talk show hosts – ooze approachability.

Irvin, who has been on the job since late January, is growing into a good talk show host on the 11 a.m.-to-2 p.m. shift at ESPN-FM (103.3). To be sure, his show is a little different. A listener can never be sure how far from the sports path Irvin and sidekick Kevin Kiley might venture. Irvin fancies himself a Dr. Phil/Dr. Laura for the afflicted who happen to be sports fans.

Friday, May 2nd

If you haven't seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall yet, I recommend it. It's very funny. Mila Kunis, Jackie from That 70's Show is in it, I liked her much better in the flick than that show. This will be the last full update for a week or so. Tommorow I'm heading to San Francisco on business for a week, I will post when I can but with work and the 2 hour time change, the updates will be smaller and later. There will be a podcast on Saturday and a blog on Tuesday, so if you feel like it, you can look forward to those.



Here is a story that if you haven't heard yet, you will be hearing it a lot in the coming days. It was sent to me yesterday by Rob and today it appeared in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram. It's a pretty cool story about a college softball game. It certainly is worth reading.

Opponents carry injured home run hitter around the bases

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER
The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. -- With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count -- an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.

The umpire said there was no rule against it.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky's legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.

"The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt," Tucholsky said. "I told her it was my right leg and she said, 'OK, we're going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,' and I said 'OK, thank you very much.'"

"She said, 'You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,' and we all kind of just laughed."

With the draft done and several months until training camp, you'd think it would be quiet around Valley Ranch these days. That's not the case for Stephen Jones.

Busy times for Dallas Cowboys' Stephen Jones

10:02 PM CDT on Thursday, May 1, 2008
Todd Archer
Dallas Morning News

IRVING – Now the fun starts for Stephen Jones.

For the last month or so, the Dallas Cowboys' executive vice president was focused solely on the NFL draft and acquiring suspended cornerback Pacman Jones from Tennessee. It didn't leave a lot of time to sign players who have shown a thing or two on the field to long-term deals.

With the construction of the new stadium, talks about naming rights, bringing events to the new place, his work in real estate and the oil business, Stephen Jones' days are pretty busy.

They are sure to get busier with the team hoping to sign running back Marion Barber, cornerback Terence Newman, safety Ken Hamlin, defensive end Chris Canty and possibly outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware to new deals.

The Cowboys have about $3.5 million worth of salary cap room, but that does not take into account the rookie pool needed to sign the team's six draft picks. They can create more space by restructuring some contracts (Tony Romo) or by cutting players, although none of the big-money players are in danger of that.

"Terence is a guy we want here. Period," Jones said. "Marion Barber is a guy we want here. Period. Kenny Hamlin is a guy we want here. Period. It's a question of resources."

The Cowboys are in the beginning stages of discussions with Drew Rosenhaus regarding Barber's future. Canty, Newman and Hamlin have expiring contracts after this season. Ware has two more years.

I'm sure this will come as a big surprise but there is an internet poll out there that is completely bogus. They rank the MLB ball parks. Sure, any list like this is subjective but having been to all but 5 of these parks, I can tell you this list is jacked. Any list that doesn't have Wrigley Field in the top 5 or Fenway in at least the top 10 is bogus. Now, I've been a critic of the Rangers ballpark, it's not perfect but it most certainly should be higher than #27 and to say the Metrodome and the Devil Rays joint rank higher is just stupid.

This is obviously a topic I need to delve into further but that will have to come at a later date.

MLB Ballpark Rankings

These are your rankings. They are based solely on results taken from an online survey of baseball fans in March, when we asked readers to rate their hometown ballpark in 10 categories. As a group, these fans know of what they speak: Nearly 15 percent of the responses came from season-ticket holders, and more than half of all the responses came from fans who attend at least five games per season.

Essentially, this is a measure of how satisfied fans are with their hometown ballpark experience. The happiest? Cleveland. Progressive Field, home of the Indians, finished first with Milwaukee's Miller Park a close runner-up. The Florida Marlins brought up the rear, which is not surprising considering they play in a football stadium under the oppressively hot South Florida sun.

Inside each team page we added a couple of extras that did not weigh into the rankings but we thought were interesting nonetheless, such as the Team Marketing Report data on ticket costs (Arizona's Chase Field ranked first for cheapest average ticket at $15.96 and Boston's Fenway Park was last at $48.80) and the player who is the biggest star attraction (Brandon Phillips beat out Ken Griffey Jr. in Cincinnati). We also included reader comments on food, hospitality and promotional giveaways.

Thursday, May 1st

Today Jennifer Aniston caught my eye. Mainly because this crazy pose (what made her think to do this?) is very intriguing to me.



My latest blog has been posted at JT the Bricks site, you can read it here.



It certainly isn't a surprise that the Mavs let Avery Johnson go. It did surprise me they did it about 12 hours after the season ended. I thought they'd stew on it for a week or so.

Avery goes out like a true winner

Randy Galloway
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

Here's what I love about Avery Johnson:

Even to the bitter end, knowing his job was on the line, he took no spit from any owner or any player, particularly a stupid weasel like Josh Howard.

Excuse me, but the Averys of the world can inhabit my planet anytime.

Sure, that coach-called-off-practice-but-the-players practiced-anyway scene from earlier this week was totally mis-reported (I'm still intrigued by Roger Clemens' infamous "mis-remembered"), and the local media -- count me as guilty -- looked like fools once the real story broke.

Regardless, Avery turned out to be right.

And speaking of right, so was his firing, or contractual settlement, or both, on Wednesday. Immediate splitsville between Avery and Mark Cuban was the quick, easy and ultimate solution.

Gentlemen, thanks to both of you for making it so simple.

Avery had to go, if nothing else, for his own good, and his own career.

Cuban, for his ego, needed a change. The man, until Wednesday, had never hired or fired a head coach (Don Nelson named Avery as his successor) and Mark, like Jerry Jones, wanted someone willing to provide an ear for his X's and O's ideas.

Big Nellie didn't want to hear him on that subject. Neither did Avery. Much hate happened.

Now that Avery is behind us, how in the world does Ron Washington still have a job?

Will Rangers wash their hands of manager?

Jim Reeves
Ft. Worth Star Telegram

ARLINGTON -- I heard a local sports talk show host suggesting Wednesday that just about any casual baseball fan off the street could manage the Texas Rangers at least as well as Ron Washington has in his one season, plus one month, in the first-base dugout at The Ballpark in Arlington.

It gave me an idea for the Rangers' next big promotion, which I offer to new team marketing guru Dale Petroskey free of charge, my own personal "welcome wagon" gift.

Hold a "Manager of the Month" contest that any fan -- male or female -- can enter and win.

Really, how hard could it be?

Scribble nine names onto a lineup card.

Ask pitching coach Mark Connor whose turn it is to start on the mound.

Sit next to former big league manager Art Howe and listen to his sage advice.

Tug on your earlobe or wipe your nose now and then to signal a hit-and-run or sacrifice bunt.

Given 27 games, like Washington had had going into Wednesday night's game with Kansas City, all Joe Fan would have to do to match the current Rangers' manager would be win one-third of his games, a measly nine. You could do that, right?

Heck, Rusty the Longhorn that picks football games in the fall could do that.

That Washington apparently will leave town after today's game with his job still in hand is perhaps the biggest surprise of a local sports week filled with shockwaves, from the Stars' unexpected playoff success to the firing of Mavs coach Avery Johnson less than 12 hours after his team's first-round elimination.



Cuban celebrated the end of the Mavs season and the firing of Avery by going to a Cubs game.

Mark Cuban takes closer look at Cubs
Prospective Cubs owner not quite taking back seat

By Dave van Dyck
Chicago Tribune reporter
11:21 PM CDT, April 30, 2008

On other visits to Wrigley Field, he sat in the bleachers.

But on Wednesday night, Mark Cuban sat in Tribune Co.'s front-row seats next to the Cubs' dugout.

Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks (who fired coach Avery Johnson on Wednesday), has publicly expressed interest in owning the Cubs, but it is still uncertain if he could raise the expected $700 million it would take or whether he could get approval from other MLB owners. Tribune Co. hopes to sell the team by the end of the year, and several groups have expressed interest, although Cuban is the most visible individual suitor.

He declined to talk with media before the game, except to say he wanted to enjoy the Cubs and a beer. Cuban's timing is curious because this is about the point when ownership said it would open its financial books to prospective buyers.

But in an interview with ESPN, Cuban said the books hadn't been released yet.

Asked about the possibility of owning the Cubs, he replied, "I don't know honestly. I'm here to get a better feel. I'm certainly interested."

He chuckled when asked what he could do to help baseball.

If the Supersonics do move to Oklahoma City from Seattle, the people there want Oklahoma City in the name. No matter that the NBA commissioner wants the name to be just Oklahoma.

Agreement requires team to have Oklahoma City in name

By Bryan Dean
Staff Writer
The Oklahoman

An agreement approved by the Oklahoma City Council Tuesday will require the NBA's SuperSonics to include Oklahoma City in the team name when the franchise moves here.

The agreement, which focuses on splitting the revenues from concessions and restaurants in the arena, settles the question of whether the team will be named for the city or for the state.

"It's a branding issue,” Mayor Mick Cornett said. "Oklahoma City has traditionally not been protective of its brand. As a result, we find ourselves with identity issues when we try to market ourselves on the east coast or elsewhere.”

At a news conference after the NBA's vote to relocate the team earlier this month, NBA Commissioner David Stern suggested the team should be named Oklahoma rather than Oklahoma City to take advantage of the proximity of Tulsa and help lure more fans from outside Oklahoma City.

Mayor Mick Cornett disagreed with Stern, saying at the time that the team name would be Oklahoma City.

There will be no February sweeps in 2009. Realizing that there might be some chaos surrounding the digital transition next February, Neilson declares that next year there will be a March sweeps.

Nielsen moves sweep to March 2009
Change designed to minimize disruption of DTV transition

By Paul J. Gough

May 1, 2008, 01:01 AM

Nielsen Media Research said Wednesday that it will move the traditional February sweep period into March next year to minimize the disruption surrounding the digital TV transition.

It's likely the first time the ratings giant has moved the timing of its four-times-a-year sweep periods. But it's also a measure of the industry's concern over the Feb. 17 conversion to all digital signals that has the potential of leaving millions of people who use over-the-air TV without a way to watch broadcasts.

In recent years, with the advent of Local People Meters in the larger markets that give overnight ratings, sweeps periods have become less important. But in smaller markets, they're still key to setting local TV ad rates. LPM ratings -- and national ratings -- will continue to be released as they normally would, though the sweeps "books" in LPM, diary and metered markets will be produced for March not February. This will allow consumers and Nielsen field staff to convert to digital. Nielsen will have to put a different type of monitor into many homes.

CBS research chief David Poltrack said Wednesday that the February sweep isn't as important to stations as November (soon after the start of the TV season) and May (near the end). February in recent years also has seen more special programming including the Academy Awards and the Super Bowl.

"The February sweep has a very narrow window of use because soon after it comes out, you're into the May book," Poltrack said.

Nielsen will continue to produce overnight national TV ratings during the transition period, which could take a week or more to settle as new TVs or digital converters are sold. The broadcast networks seem resigned to some kind of a temporary drop in viewership among the 10 million or more of their audience that still has over-the-air TV.

Apparently, not only are people not watching TV since new episodes have returned, the shows themselves haven't been very good. The shows we watch have been pretty good but apparently the USA Today doesn't agree.

For TV, it's been a strike-shortened season on the brink

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Just when you think this season can't get any crazier, it does.

It's no great shock that a host of shows, including most of Thursday's heavyweights, have set season-ratings lows this spring; we assumed the strike would chase away viewers. The surprise is that the strike-induced break also, in too many cases, seems to have chased away good writing and good sense.

Consider NBC's best sitcom, 30 Rock, which has been at far less than its best. Something funny is always happening at the Rock, but lately the fun has been swamped by the merely frantic, with Liz spinning wildly in all directions. Tina Fey needs to consider who exactly she wants Liz to be — or whether she wants to be on a sitcom at all, if a film-inspired lack of focus is the problem.

Still, the worst idea sitcom-wise can be found at Fox's Back to You, which has shifted its focus from its strongest asset, the newsroom, to its weakest, the domestic story of the anchors' secret daughter. And just to make matters more confusing for viewers, they've shared the secret with a new, recast Gracie.

It's not just sitcoms going a little loopy. CBS' CSI: Miami, a show many of us adore because it's so colorfully over-the-top, is in danger of crossing that line between entertainingly nuts and just plain insane. We've accepted a lot of sudden changes in David Caruso's Horatio Caine, from instant husband to instant widower to instant father. But April's action-hero transformation, gunning down gangsters in Rio and tuning up predators in Miami, is a beachhead too far.

Whew. They found Roger Waters' pig.

Pig Found! World Safe

Hollywood Reporter
Wednesday, Apr 30, 2008 8:28AM

A giant helium-filled pig didn't drift off to hog heaven after it was released into the night sky during Roger Waters' performance at the Coachella music festival. It's been found - in pieces.

Two couples found tattered halves of the inflatable swine in their yards, a few miles from festival grounds in the Southern California desert.

Concert organizers had offered a $10,000 reward for the pig's return. On Tuesday, pieces of the plastic carcass were examined.

"That's definitely our pig," producer Bill Fold said.

Susan Stoltz found a plastic heap in her driveway Monday, but said she didn't know what it was until she read about the missing pig in the Desert Sun newspaper.

"My kids are going to think I'm so cool," she said.

Another resident of the same neighborhood, Judy Rimmer, said she found a piece of the pig draped over a front-yard plant.

Bruce played Charlottesville, GA last night.

April 30 / Charlottesville, VA / John Paul Jones Arena

Notes: A spirited start for this sold-out show, with "Loose Ends" another Tracks rarity to kick it off, just as "Roulette" and "Don't Look Back" started the night on a high at the previous barnburner in Greensboro. "Mary's Place" turned up again, too -- but that's where the affinity between the two shows end, Charlottesville being one where things didn't quite click. Hard to say, but it could be that after more than a week of channeling so much into the performance, an emotional drain has understandably taken its toll. Whatever the reason, this was a shorter show, with a less inspired setlist and a performance coming up short of others on this astounding recent run. The penultimate show of a leg has been one to watch on Springsteen tours, often turning out to be the stand-out... not so this time.

"No Surrender" was an audible, the message not quite reaching everyone at the start -- "Hang on, we're getting there!" said Bruce. On the setlist but not played were "This Hard Land" (Bruce had the harmonica in hand, but let this one go, leaving only "Mary's Place" between "Livin' in the Future" and "Devil's Arcade"), "Streets of Fire" (given the boot again!) and, as a planned bonus after "Badlands," "I Wanna Be With You."