Price!

I know everyone's excited that a knuckleballer won the National League Cy Young Award winner but I've always liked David Price who won the American League Cy Young so there ya go...

Skyfall was really good, and Quantum of Solace is still really bad

I saw Skyfall this weekend. It was good. Maybe I'd like Bond movies more if Quantum of Solace wasn't so bad that it'll take another three Bond movies to totally forget about it.

Anyway, Skyfall grossed almost $90 million opening weekend, way more than any other Bond movie.

(The anime image is from here.) 

Better the Ducks than Alabama

And here's the fallout from the Texas A & M game: Alabama drops to 4th in the AP rankings. The Oregon Ducks are on top now.

And thanks to Michigan's win, the Wolverines are back in the top 25! (okay okay at 23rd but it's something).

So, uh I guess the tide didn't roll

Of all the teams to play the invisible Crimson Tide, Texas A & M  —Texas A & M!— was the one to beat them. Final score 29-24.

I was too busy watching another amazing comeback Michigan, this time beating Northwestern in overtime. Shoelace is still hurt but it's starting to not matter. Devin Gardner isn't bad at QB.

So glad the election is over

Abby is right, Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney suck. Let's never talk about them again.

Jake Peavy staying with the Sox

It's a 2 year, $29 million deal.

“I’m really excited to come back to Chicago and build on what we did last year.” -@jakepeavy_44
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) October 30, 2012

Community comes back February 7th

October 19th is February 7th. It's finally coming back!

Guys, #Community officially has an airdate: Thursday, February 7th at 8pm!
— yvette nicole brown (@yvettenbrown) October 30, 2012

It's true! Community is officially (for now) coming back Thurs, February 7th at 8pm!
— Alison Brie (@alisonbrie) October 30, 2012

Michigan should NOT have lost to Nebraska

There's really not much to be said about Michigan vs. Nebraska. Michigan could've beaten Nebraska at full strength but then Denard hurt his hand and on came freshman Russell Bellomy who, as far as I could tell, had never played football before. What a joke.

Michigan lost to Nebraska 23-9. It was painful.

Brightside is it looks like Denard will be able to play next weekend against Minnesota.

Jake or AJ could win a Golden Glove

I need to review the stats but I think AJ had the slightly better year. I could be wrong about this though.

Peavy, Pierzynski are Sox finalists for Rawlings Gold Gloves. To be announced Tuesday.
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) October 29, 2012

Ozzie's fired —wait I don't care

So Ozzie Guillen had a terrible season and today he was fired. That'd be important if he was still with the White Sox but he wasn't...

More Bulldog?

I always assumed Bulldog would just leave the Sox once he was a free agent. My hunch was he wanted to be on a team that would definitely make the playoffs. But it looks like he could stay:

Dunn, a close friend of Peavy, said Peavy would like to stay with the White Sox.
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) October 23, 2012

Even if he wants to stay though, it's not a done deal. Peavy and the Sox still have to agree on a contract and Peavy could end up asking for more money than the team are willing to give.

I'm not even sure how Homeland can finish season two

It's really hard to imagine how Homeland can go for a third season when the show could easily have ended after the last episode but here we are. Homeland has been renewed for a third season just as... (spoiler!)

Ouch

Two weeks ago Geno Smith looked like he had the Heisman Trophy in the bag. Not anymore:

Smith followed up a clunker at Texas Tech last week with an even worse game, throwing his first two interceptions of the season and finishing 21 for 32 for 143 yards. The senior has gone from Heisman Trophy front-runner to long shot in two weeks.

Giants heading to the World Series

So it'll be Giants vs. Tigers. Go Giants!

Michigan gets its 900th win off of MSU

 Here's what was awesome about Michigan's 900th win:

• It broke MSU's five-game winning streak versus Michigan. 
• It was Michigan's 900th win. Michigan is the winningest program in NCAA history.
• It was off of a field goal in the last five seconds of the game.

 I was sure Brendan Gibbons would miss his 38-yard field goal and lose the game but I was wrong. Good. 

Logic has nothing to do with it

It's a waste of time to question the logic of shows like The Walking Dead. All these shows operate in universes that aren't realistic. The idea of corpses rising up, slowly wandering the earth and crippling human civilization is more than illogical, it's ridiculous.

And yet people still nitpick: How could our heroes survive an explosion that blew up the CDC? The detonation would have suffocated everyone nearby. Or wouldn't zombies die out from lack of sustenance? If they're wandering around starving for lack of human flesh their muscles would atrophy.

This is all pointless. When you watch any t.v. show you surrender yourself to a world where zombies can walk around or a Marine-turned-secret-terrorist is the frontrunner for becoming the Democratic vice presidential nominee. It's not realistic but that's not why we watch.

October 19th is a state of mind

Community was supposed to premiere last night but...it didn't. And, in a gesture of how much Sony values the show, a new date hasn't been set yet. It's still just sitting there.

The White Sox are cheap because they suck

The White Sox tickets are going to be cheaper in 2013 which would be cool if the Sox were awesome and in the playoffs. But they're not. They didn't make the playoffs. So cheaper tickets means that the club thinks a lot of people will only go to White Sox games if tickets are cheaper which is true...

And sad.

James Bond by the numbers

The Economist did a study on James Bond:

• Pierce Brosnan has the most kills. 
• Daniel Craig has drunk the most martinis.
• George Lazenby has had the most sex.

No I'm not happy Detroit won the ALCS

I know I'm supposed to be happy the Yankees didn't win the ALCS for yet another year but since it's the Yankees all I can say is kiss my ass.

The Walking Dead dominates

The first season of The Walking Dead was excellent and a lot of people watched:

“The Walking Dead,” AMC’s hugely popular drama, became the biggest hit of the fall television season on Sunday night, with the premiere of its third season posting ratings that surpassed every other nonsports program on television in most viewing categories.

The show attracted 10.9 million total viewers for its 9 p.m. initial broadcast: that beat every entertainment show on every broadcast network on Sunday night, topped only by National Football League play on NBC – and possibly “60 Minutes” on CBS. (The overnight figures for the 7 p.m. hour on CBS included both some N.F.L. games and “60 Minutes.”)

More significantly, “Dead” pulled in 7.3 million viewers ages 18 to 49, the category advertisers most prefer. Not only did that beat just about everything else on Sunday, except football, it beat everything else in nonsports programming that has been on television this fall. That means it ranks above such hits as “Modern Family” on ABC (seven million), “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS (6.3 million) and “The Voice” on NBC (6.1 million.)

New Zero Dark Thirty trailer

This movie looks so good.

 

It's pretty dumb to accuse this movie of being a pro-Obama flick. It's coming out in the third quarter of the year so it can win Oscars. That's what producers do: they hold their best stuff until right before the Oscars. If Zero Dark Thirty was meant to help Obama win reelection, it wouldn't have been moved until after the election.

Saturday was a good night if you're the Tigers

If your team is named the Tigers, Saturday night had a happy ending. LSU beat South Carolina by turning the game around with about 5 minutes left on the clock, ending the game 23 -21.

And then the Tigers almost lost game 1 of the ALCS to the Yankees but came back in extra innings, 6-4. I'm rooting for any team against the Tigers right now so these days baseball is a source of endless frustration for me. And Jeter is out for three months with a fractured ankle!

At least Michigan totally destroyed Illinois, 45-0.

No really, NBC wants to kill Community

Okay so you know how NBC moved Community to Friday? And fired Dan Harmon? Yeah, that wasn't quite enough for them. Now they've moved the season 4 premiere to some future date that hasn't been decided yet which is exactly what you do if you want to kill a show:

Given the success we’ve had for the past four weeks – including winning the first week of the season in A18-49 – we’ve decided to continue to concentrate our promotional strength on our new NBC shows that are scheduled Monday through Wednesday and have therefore decided to hold Community and Whitney from their previously announced premieres of October 19th. Without having to launch these comedies on Friday at this time, we can keep our promotion focused on earlier in the week —  plus we will have both comedies in our back pocket if we need to make any schedule changes on those nights.  When we have a better idea of viewing patterns in the next few weeks,  we will announce new season premieres of Whitney and Community. 

Not good, not good at all.

And judging from this Q & A with the new writers, there's no reason to think things'll get any better:

Q. Were there any initial conversations with Sony or NBC about what they expected from you on the show?

A. Guarascio A little bit. Mostly, it was thank you for doing this. When we started to pitch our stories, they had that first [reaction]: Well, maybe now that we’re in a new place, it could it be more like this instead of that. So we did have to dig in a little bit and say, look, we didn’t come on to make that into this. We came on to keep doing this. We did have to draw a couple lines in the sand.

That's more like it

The Big 10 is so strange this year. Yeah I'm happy that Michigan comfortably beat Purdue 44-13 but I'd also have liked for Indiana to beat Michigan State which would have been embarrassing as hell (final score 31-27 MSU) and for Nebraska to beat Ohio State (final score 63-38). Weren't the Buckeyes supposed to be bad?

Anyway, Arkansas beat Auburn yesterday which should be obvious but since Arkansas is inexplicably terrible this year, it's actually kind of surprising. Deadspin's headline had it best: "Auburn Wrests Title Of “Team Everyone Wants To Play” From Arkansas." So now Arkansas (2-4, 1-2 in the SEC) isn't quite as sad a team as it was...but still pretty damn sad.

This'll sell some whiskey

Christina Hendricks now advertising for Johnnie Walker. 

 

What I'm watching this fall

T.V. season is here!

The Walking Dead - season 3 - Oct. 14 (hat tip: The K-Line):

Community - season 4 - Fridays Oct. 19. I'm not as worried as some people are that this season is going to suck because Dan Harmon is gone. But I do have a conspiracy theory: NBC fired Harmon and moved the show to Friday so it won't get a lot of shit for canceling the show after the season. Friday tends to be the chopping board for lots of shows.

Homeland - season 2 - premiered Sept. 30 and airs every Sunday.

There's also Chicago Fire. Season premiere is Oct. 10. Could be good (Dick Wolf produced) or could be awful.

Jake Peavy wouldn't tweet out his new swank headphones if he were leaving...right?

Check out my new #WhiteSox headphones from @bigraudio twitter.com/JakePeavy_44/s…
— Jake Peavy (@JakePeavy_44) October 4, 2012

You'd only do that if you planned to play for the White Sox for a bit right? This is a sign that he doesn't plan to use his free agency to move to a different team...right?

Goodtimes in the SEC

No Michigan game this weekend but there were a bunch of good games this weekend that'll leave fans happy. The Georgia bulldogs beat Tennessee 51-44.  And West Virginia beat Baylor 70-63. Sure, Georgia and West Virginia fans will whine about how the games were too close but a win's a win and it's a lot of fun to get that last minute touchdown. 

In the Big Ten Ohio State bested Michigan State 17-16.

And Arkansas is now 1-4 after losing to Texas A&M 58-10. Are they even trying to play football?

I'm just going to focus on football right now because baseball is too damn depressing. The White Sox lost to Tampa Bay 6-2 and Detroit widdled its magic number down to one.

Tight race in the AL Central

You can understand why fans were calling the season quits 48 hours ago. They were one-for-eight in nine games with six games left in the season. But then the Sox beat Tampa Bay and the Tigers lost to to Minnesota Twins (not exactly the best team in baseball this year...) so Detroit leads by one game. This all could still go in the Sox's favor. Right now, things are tight. Time to just wait and chill.

Childish Gambino turns 29 today.

Because who doesn't love Troy from Community?

The Fighting Irish have had enough

Notre Dame cashes out on the rivalry after beating Michigan 13-6:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan Athletic Department announced today (Tuesday, Sept. 25) that the football series with Notre Dame has been cancelled for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons. The Irish informed Michigan director of athletics Dave Brandon prior to kickoff of the match-up Saturday (Sept. 22) in South Bend, Ind.

"The decision to cancel games in 2015-17 was Notre Dame's and not ours," said Brandon, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. "We value our annual rivalry with Notre Dame but will have to see what the future holds for any continuation of the series. This cancellation presents new scheduling opportunities for our program and provides a chance to create some new rivalries."

The Wolverines and Irish have met on the gridiron 40 times, the most for Michigan against any non-conference opponent. Michigan holds a 23-16-1 all-time record against Notre Dame, one of the U-M's three main rivals along with Michigan State and Ohio State.

The final two games in the rivalry will take place on Sept. 7, 2013, at Michigan Stadium, and the following year on Sept. 6, 2014, at Notre Dame Stadium. Both schools agreed to a break in the series during the 2018 and 2019 seasons. The future of games scheduled to be played in 2020 and beyond has yet to be determined.

And now the Sox don't even lead by one whole game

Yesterday, the White Sox lead the division by a game. Right now they lead the league by half a game (Detroit is currently beating Kansas City 2-0) but who knows what's going to happen. I'm too old for this shit.

Bonus: The White Sox nominated Jake "Bulldog" Peavy for the Clemente award.

About last night

Yesterday was pretty miserable. I didn't watch the White Sox lose to the Angels for the second night in a row (this time 2-4 instead of 2-6 the night before...progress!...) but I did watch Michigan lose to Notre Dame in what can best be described as the most painfully slow loss by the Wolverines in recent memory.

It wasn't that Notre Dame was good, —actually I was pretty underwhelmed by them. This was the team that broke Michigan State's defense? The problem was that Michigan was just worse. Michigan lost 13-6 and had six (six!) turnovers. Pathetic.

So now the White Sox lead the division by half a game and the Wolverines' record is 2-2.

Drink up

Seems like every Chicago politician is trading in Goose Island 312. Here's Rahm passing along a case to the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.

And here's Obama paying off a World Cup bet with David Cameron with the Urban Wheat beer:

 

The timing of Rahm's gift couldn't be better. Even with Peavy on the mound, the White Sox lost to the Angels 6-2. The Sox now lead the division by 1.5 games meaning....it's time to drink.

Obama, by the way, thinks the White Sox are going to make the playoffs and then probably lose to the Nationals:

President Obama on Friday congratulated the Washington Nationals on clinching a playoff berth.

"I want to congratulate the Washington Nationals for bringing playoff baseball to D.C.," Obama said at a campaign speech in Woodbrigde, Va., on Friday. "You guys are looking good."

Obama, noting his hometown Chicago White Sox are leading their division by two games, said he looked forward to a Windy City-D.C. World Series.

"I am looking forward to a White Sox-Nationals World Series. It’s going to happen. White Sox are still in first place," Obama continued. "But I've got to admit, you guys are looking a little better right now. You guys are looking very good."

Nothing's happening, go back to sleep

The White Sox lost to the Kansas City Royals but luckily Detroit got a nice ass whoopin from Oakland (final score 12-4) so Chicago is back to a 2 game lead...

Meanwhile, the White Sox coaching staff thinks the way to bring the team to the next level is to nap more:

Never mind a few innings, White Sox director of conditioning Allen Thomas thinks a 30-minute window can make a huge difference in a player's energy level. Thomas said the team not only has reduced the workload of players' specific workouts, but he also encourages them to find a pillow in the clubhouse or at the hotel whenever possible.

"There's a whole lot of power in a 15-minute nap," said Thomas, who is in his 10th season as director. "When you plug your battery back in for a few minutes, you still get some charge. Guys are doing a lot more contrast: we're doing the hot tub, cold tub and just cutting down their volume of work. You try to get better efficiency out of a fewer number of reps and use the energy for the main event."

You're now tuned into the motherfucking greatest

Jay-Z and Beyonce hosted a fundraiser for President Obama this week.

My favorite caption: "I got 99 problems but a Mitt ain't one."

White Sox have three-game lead

Alright, let's all calm the fuck down. The White Sox could easily lose their next three games and Detroit could (and probably will) dominate their next three games and then we should all kill ourselves... OR... the Sox could continue their pathetic lead and clinch the AL central. After today's 5-4 win, the Sox lead the division by three -three!- games.

Next up are the Kansas City Royals and the Angels. The Sox always seems to have trouble with the Royals and then there's Mike Trout, god of baseball... But let's not focus on the future. Right now, things are looking good...or at least better...