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?