hoorta

Tom had Chudinski pegged as Ukrainian- not so fast my friend. Was having my usual glass of wine at the Saturday wine swill, an' it turn in to the society of DPs (Displaced Pollocks) was a talkin' to dat dere Marianna chick straight from dem dere streets of Kracow Poland.

So Iz ask her politley if dat der Chud miester wid dat kinda name is Polish. She say, da, sure, absolutley.

To those that wanna learn some correct Eastern European pronunciation, den I ask her how ya says C-H-U-D-I-N-S-K-I. An let me tell ya boyz, it ain't like you thikin'.

It HOOD (rhymes with rude, the "C" is silent) DEEN- ski.  

Jus havin' some fun tonight.

At the top of the list the "Golden Boob Award" has to go "Incarcerated Boob". The guy who broke "it's Kelly". Seriously, guys- in the future, I'll pull any post that mentions this guy a a source- because "The Boob" HAS no f**cking sources, other than a Ouija Board.

I not gonna actually look up the guys who deserve honorable mention- but if anyone wants to have at it, be my guest.

"it's Marrone"
"it's Saban"
"it's Gruden"

I'm tired & disgusted of hearing rumors the Browns will part ways with Dawson. The guy just (deservedly) made the Pro Bowl. His only miss was on a kick a defender partially deflected. Don't forget Janikowski outpolled him in the Fan's vote- which means guys in the know- coaches & players thought Dawson had the better year. Ghoolie goes on about offensive weapons- and Dawson has been the Browns #1 the past couple of seasons. He deserves to finish his career as a Brown- he only needs about 2 more seasons and change to pass Lou Groza for all-time leader in Browns scoring. He already would have passed him if he had been lucky enough to be playing for a scoring machine team that Vinateri had @ NE, instead of the crap Cleveland has been since 1999. At 36 Dawson should have at least several more highly productive seasons left in him- Jason Hanson and some of the other top scorers (are) were still booting them well into their 40s. Phil has actually improved his distance on kickoffs over the years too- that used to be the knock on him.  

Cribbs is another story- though he's a fan favorite and gives it his all- it's obvious he's lost a step on kick returns. He still has value as a ST player- one of the best open field tacklers in the league. It's a question of what he's going to demand for his next contract. If it's much more than veteran minimum, I doubt he's going to be back.

So Mr. Banner- IMHO, let Phil walk, and bringing in your pal Lombardi would be far worse moves than Holmgren bringing in Shur-loss. My Sunday schedule will change in that event. Oh I'll still (reluctantly) renew my season tickets, but no more of this hanging out with the guys watching the game in real time. I'll just DVR it, go out enjoy some long fall bike rides, and watch the game when I get back.

This is week 14 my friend. What did I see out of the Weedster? Like the baseball pitcher he is- a lot of high uncatchable fastballs, balls thrown behind receivers, 4 passes knocked down, piss poor field awareness, inability to (for the most part) hit his receivers in stride, and ZERO touch on his throws. This guy is DA II, and he's 30 years old. One of those ints would have been avoidable if he had merely lobbed the ball over the LBs head.

Oh, BTW, Shurmur and Jauron are gone too- Shanahan & his kid coached their pants off today.

Consider my bias, as I'm a hardcore Tolkien fanatic, and I rarely head for the big screen.

I'll use LOTR as my baseline. Probably the biggest problem is- how do you top some of the greatest 9 hours of film making? In that respect, at least on the first viewing, The Hobbit comes up short.

I had fears hearing the rumors Jackson was going to seriously deviate from the book. Not the case- with a few exceptions, that I'll get to. Complaints- I have some. I'll get the big negative out of the way first. The pace of the movie- despite some pretty epic battle scenes- seemed agonizingly slow, and made the movie feel far longer than it's actual run time. Bilbo signing on with the Dwarves seemed like forever. With 10 years gone by, I was hoping for a little better on the special effects too. I thought the battle scenes were a tad overblown, but if World of Warcraft is your thing- you'll love them. Jackson turns the Wizard Radagast into a bumbling goober- which he really wasn't in the book. Add in, us Loremasters know Thorin killed Azog way back at the Battle of Moria- and Azog is still very much alive and (sort of) well in the Hobbit. I have a damn good idea what's going to happen to him in Chapter II. I don't get Jackson's fascination of turning the Head orcs into caricatures either. Gothmog in LOTR could pass for a mutilated Porky Pig- there's several similar new vermin awaiting you in The Hobbit.

Now to the pluses- the cinematography is great. For those who aren't Tolkien fanatics, Jackson did a terrific job filling in the back story. Did a good job of "adultifying" the Hobbit, which was written more on the level of a kid's Fairy Tale. For those who are Loremasters, there's plenty of stuff in the movie verbatim right out of the book. (Gollum & Bilbo) Did a pretty good job differentiating the 13 dwarves- and even Moi couldn't rattle off all their names without a lot of thinking- and as in LOTR Jackson dead on pegged how each of them were described in the book. Kudos for that.  

I'll have to see it a couple more times at least- but first blush it's a B, B- flick.