Al Saunders - The Redskins' New Sheriff

The Redskins' New Sheriff Ok, here's my theory. Gibbs has been back for two years. Greg Williams has been his (kick ass) defensive coordinator for both years. At the end of last year, everyone thought Williams would leave to take a head coaching job, but guess what? He signed an extension on his contract for three more years. What do I think? Dan Snyder & Coach Gibbs convinced Williams to stay on for the remainder of Gibbs' tenure by promising him the Head Coach job when Gibbs left. Smart move, I think. Ok. Then, after the end of the season last year, we hear Al Saunders, offensive coordinator of the highest scoring offenses in the league for the past two years, has been hired to take over the offense for Gibbs. After reading this article, I'm guessing that the feeling in the league is that he's proven himself as a coordinator, but doesn't have the proven leadership ability to take the top spot. So what does he do? He takes a job as offensive coordinator under one of the greatest coaches and leaders in the history of the NFL. A coach who had done wonders with his team, but has floundered a bit on offense. A team that has a great defense, but has needs help delivering the ball into the end zone. So with the some of the best offensive and defensive coaches in the league, with some of the most creative free agent financing and acquisitions in the off season, it looks like the Skins will have the ability to go all the way this year. That's what we get out of it. What does Saunders get? He gets to watch the master in action. He gets to watch and learn from a cocah who has won three Super Bowls. He gets to learn how to be a head coach in the National Football League. And three years from now, when Gibbs has proven that he still has what it takes to win a Super Bowl and retires again, and Williams takes his place at the top spot in the franchise, Saunders will have his choice of teams to call his own.

WTF??

Body Parts Found in Nude Dancer's Home

It's Back, Baby!

The Contender is back! Prime time, baby! WOO HOO!! Unfortunately for Chrissy, the two-hour premiere started at 10:00, so she didn't make it to the second fight. She's just not a night owl. First fight shocked me. From everything that everyone had seen to that point, I don't think anyone expected "K-9" Bundrage to beat Michael Clark. He just seemed too awkward and raw during sparring. Clark seemed to be the experienced one with the skills. Unfortunately for him, though, K-9 was too strong and he kept Clark away with the long jab. He used it effectively to keep Clark from getting close enough to hurt him. Kept him from putting together combinations. The second fight, Norberto Bravo (35 years old!) beat Rudy Cisneros by split decision. I was surprised it wasn't unanimous. Not shocked, but surprised. Both fighters scored pretty much non-stop for 5 rounds, but Bravo was just the more skilled fighter. Cisneros looked good, though. Nothing to be ashamed of. A few interesting changes from last season. No challenges on the first episode. Pretty much introduced the fighters, let them choose teams, and let them pick their first fighter without knowing what the other side would do. The team that won the first fight chose the second fight. The winning boxer also got to choose his place for the next fight. They had a big ol' board on the wall with a playoff-style bracket showing the matchups through the final round. The trick is that K-9 got to choose his spot in Round 2 (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th fight), but no one knows yet who his opponent will be. Interesting. Can't wait for next week!

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

Can I? Dare I say it? I love Clinton Portis! Not that I'm gay or anything (see title of this post). Aside from his obvious talent (1,516 rushing yards last year) and his great sense of humor (Southeast Jerome), I think the man is a great team player. Just read what he says about the upcoming season. Watch him play. He always knows where the ball is and is aware of what is happening in any given play. More importantly, he doesn't stop playing until after the play is over. How many times do you see people standing around doing nothing because they thought they heard a whistle, only to see someone run right past them with the ball? You never see Portis do that. He hustles until the bitter end... and then keeps going. He also has a bit of a reputation as a man-about-town, but come on, the guy's 24, single, good looking (see title again) and rich. BUT you don't hear about him getting arrested for pulling a gun on someone (you listening, Sean?). Is it obvious? I'm an admirer!

Spider-Man 3

Holy Crap!! Damn, this looks killer! Sandman - Looks good. I bet he will look even better once the f/x are finished. The black costume looks great. Not identical to the comics version, but works better for the big screen. My guess is that it will come back from the moon with Jameson's son. Peter will get rid of it in the same was as he does in the comics (sound waves from a bell tower) and it will attach to Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) much as it did in the comics. Possible setup for SM4? Looks like Harry gets on the glider, too, but my guess is that he does it as a favor to Mary Jane to try to stop Peter from hurting anyone, especially himself. The teaser kicks ass. I can't wait for May 2007!! Argh!

The End of Civilization as We Know It

I don't know which is worse, this, or the fact that K-Fed & Britney are spawing a 2nd time... God help us all.

Luau, Part II

Ok, this is a picture of the tablescape from the luau that we had on Saturday. I had tried repeatedly to post the picture, but for some reason, I was unable to. The wok on the right had the fried rice Chrissy's sister Noelle made. You can't see, but the pinkish tray on the front left corner of the table had a tiki face on it. It is holding sweet potato chips. The 3-tier tray directly behind it was a wedding gift from one of the guests, Sharon. All in all, I think it was a great success. Everyone seemed very surprised and pleased with the lengths to which we went to decorate everything. If I can get the image tool to work again, I'll post a picture of Chrissy and me in our luau gear. :-)

This is So Friggin' Bizarre

Everytime Connie Chung Says Goodbye We Die A Little, Especially This Time - Gawker

This is Farrah-on-Letterman/Cruise-on-Oprah-level weirdness. I'm talking Howard-Dean-scream weird. Actually, it reminds me of Ashcroft singing, "Let the Eagle Soar." Eeee... Wonder if she was boozin' it up before this show. Or maybe she started doing drugs. Who knows?

Turning Up 'American Idol'

Turning Up 'American Idol'
This is an amazing article that about a man who was born with a defective gene that made his hearing all but gone by the time he started school. He really has an incredible perspective on life in general. I think that people's attitudes really have a lot to do with how they happy they are in life. Some people are bound and determined to be miserable and no matter what happens to the, by God, they are going to be miserable! In any case, I was very moved by Mr. Swiller's story. I would recommend that anyone read it.

A Weekend of Extremes

Well, we went to New Jersey this weekend to visit with Chrissy's family. We had a luau last night with a bunch of our friends, and that went great. We baked a ham, fried some rice and got some chicken, we had crab rangoon appetizers as well as chicken and vegetable spring rolls. We had rum (yum!). Basically anything remotely polynesian, we got. Of course, we fed 12 people and still had leftovers for about 8 more meals. But that's nothing unusual for us. So that was the good...

Then, this morning, we were meeting Chrissy's cousin Denise and Aunt Fran for breakfast at a restaurant she highly recommended. Then we were going to visit her Aunt Kay, who is in a physical rehab center recovering from breaking a pelvis bone in a fall. If she follows orders, she should be able to go gome in a few weeks, but she's pretty stubborn. She's already had one setback because she was trying to do too much herself.

But I digress. We went to a restaurant in Maple Shade, NJ, called Maritsa's. We had forgotten it was Father's Day, and had to wait a little bit for a table. No problem. After a bit, we got seated. The waitress took our order, including our usual "pork roll well done," and the wait began. After about 15-20 minutes, we started seeing people around us finish their meals and leave, and other patrons being seated and ordering. Then, we started seeing the new patrons getting their food! So we snagged the passing waitress and asked if it would be much longer, and were told (with no apology) that "he" was real busy and backed up and it wouldn't be long. Another 10-15 minutes later, Denise got up and asked the manager how much longer it would be, because she had to leave for work soon. She was assured that it would be any minute. Another 10 minutes or so later, we decided that if one more table that was seated after us got served before us, we would leave. No sooner did we decide that, then the table next to us got served. So we get up to leave. As we pass the counter, the owner/manager sees us and says, "Oh, wait, your food is up!" We turned to each other, trying to decide if we should stay, when the owner's son (and the cook of the restaurant) says, "You want it well done or you want it raw? Get the hell out of here!" I said, "Forget it. Let's leave." I guess the owner decided to back his son and said, "You always complain! We don't want you here! Leave and don't come back!" So long story short (too late), if you're ever in Maple Shade, NJ, don't ever got to Maritsa's on Main Street. The service is slow and apathetic and the owners and cooks are rude.