Sep 13
So, can we hold on this year? With 17 games left, we’re up by three games over the scrappy Phillies. The good news; our starting pitching is much stronger this season, and the team is clearly far more relaxed. The bad news; anything can happen. It’s baseball.
Doubleheader today for the Mets, with Santana and Jon Niese throwing. A split is a must, and a sweep would be lovely. I’ll report back this evening…
Great win for the Jets to start the year, but of course, the big football news of the day (and it’s certainly related to the Jets) is Tom Brady’s knee injury, which appears likely to sideline him for the season; an MRI tomorrow appears to be a formality at this point. It’s hard to overstate how devastating this is for the Patriots and their fans, and we’ll get the greatest test yet of Bill Belichick’s coaching genius. He’s made his name mixing and matching random variables—before last year’s attack squadron, remember, he’d won with scrubs like Antowain Smith, David Patten, and Daniel Graham playing enormous roles. But all that was due to Tom Brady’s extraordinary abilities; he always seemed to find the open man no matter who it was. How else could Mike Vrabel have multiple TD receptions to his credit? Without Brady, the AFC is blown wide open. New England still has lots of weapons and should be a contender if Matt Cassel is adequate, but can they be anything more than slightly above average now? We’ll see.
As for the Jets, it was a strong Week 1 performance. It’s important to remember that this is not the same Miami team that went 1-15. As critical as I’ve been about Chad Pennington in the past (and I maintain he’s not a championship QB), he’s light years better than the utter dreck the Dolphins trotted out there last year, and adds an aura of legitimacy to the team. So, I expect Miami to win somewhere between four and six games this year, and be a weak-but-not-historically-bad team, and there was no reason to expect a blowout on the road while the new additions are still gelling. All that said, the plusses and minuses from today:
Positives:
1. The run defense was worlds better than us suffering Jets fans are accustomed to. Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown were swarmed everytime they touched the ball, and there were zero big plays. Miami doesn’t have a first-rate offensive line, but it was a very encouraging start.
2. DWIGHT LOWERY! The rookie 4th-rounder was fantastic playing opposite Darrelle Revis at CB, batting down at least three passes and showing strong tackling skills. If he’s legit—and his College nickname, Dwight Swipe, indicates the skillset is there—then the pass defense receives a major boost. Having two ballhawk cornerbacks can’t be underestimated in today’s pass-happy NFL, and it’s something the Jets haven’t had in years, if not decades.
3. While the offensive line’s pass-blocking wasn’t perfect, the run-blocking looked in midseason form. Thomas Jones had holes that simply weren’t there last year, and took advantage of them.
4. Given that Favre is just getting comfortable in the offense and with his WR’s, it was impressive how much he looked like…Brett Favre. The stupid fumble was classic Favre, but so was the nutty 4th-and-13 scrambling TD.
Negatives:
1. There wasn’t the overall consistency I’d like to see going forward, and Vernon Gholston’s name wasn’t mentioned.
2. Coles was barely targeted, and seemed to have trouble separating. I hope that’s not a long-term issue, because we really need him opposite Cotchery.
3. Nugent better be healthy, cuz I don’t want to see Kellen Clemens kicking on the sideline ever again. If he’s at all banged up, I’d rather sign a stopgap for a week than take the chance of a defunct kicking game against the Patriots.
Coming Friday: a preview of Week 2′s Jets/Pats game.
An interesting few weeks in my poker career. I took a trip to Atlantic City a few weeks ago for my first live LHE action in several months, and man, had I missed it. I ran well and played even better, and crushed the 40-80 for a 6K score. Obviously, that’s way above expectation even in a game as soft as the Borg 40…but jeez, the players are just not good at all. I’d say the 5-10 6-max games on Poker Stars are substantially tougher. Everytime I play live LHE, I get tempted to move out to California and play professionally. But for now, at least, I love my RE career, and prefer poker to be a supplement…
Online, I still can’t get into the same sort of rhythm as live…I don’t think my fast-twitch personality is as well suited to playing on the computer, where I can get easily distracted and am constantly multi-tabling. I really need to start using PokerTracker, because the players are certainly weak (at least at the levels I’d play), and get focused. By far, my tournament game is the best aspect of my online repertoire; I tend to focus much better in them and rarely tilt, for whatever reason (I also almost never tilt live, which is obviously a huge advantage). On that note, I just missed my first monster score last night for the third time in the past few months, finishing 21st out of 2,258 in the $215 WCOOP Limit Event. I played very well, but made a few mistakes I regret, and lost a tough hand late with JJ vs AT on a JKQ board. Couldn’t recover from that, unfortunately. Ah well…the big payday is coming…
Though fairly pedestrian by cinematic standards, Joseph Mealey’s Bush’s Brain is a workmanlike portrayal of the astonishing influence Karl Rove holds (and judging by John McCain’s campaign tactics, continues to have) in Republican politics, tracing back decades and culminating in his masterminding both of George W. Bush’s Presidential campaigns, not to mention the actual Presidency. Bush’s Brain probes Rove’s extraordinary intelligence—which, love him or loathe him, is undeniable—and illustrates his uncanny ability to stretch the law just enough to always manage to duck intense scrutiny. Though this writer despises everything that Rove stands for, both politcally and ethically, it’s difficult to watch his meticulous planning and organizing without a hint of admiration. There’s a chilling element to Rove’s childhood, displayed in sporadic flashbacks early in the picture—it seems eerily plausible that a few different variables could have put Rove’s scary genius to work as a serial killer, or something else equally demonic…
Bush’s Brain does a good job illustrating the power that Rove holds over the current administration, and the numerous interviews paint a disturbing picture of Rove’s complete disregard for integrity. Many Republicans voice their opinions, and it’s particularly interesting to see them discuss Rove with a mix of awe and disgust. Plenty of them have been crossed by Rove, who spares nobody if they’re in the way of his current objective (see his treatment of McCain in the 2000 primaries, which just makes McCain’s embrace of Rovian tactics now all the more repulsive), and contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of principled conservatives who think that Rove has given their entire brand a bad name. It’s fascinating to observe.
Still, most folks know what a jackass Karl Rove is without a documentary telling them so, and Bush’s Brain lacks any real clout as a film; it’s essentially a punchlist of Karl Rove’s upbringing and immersion into the underworld of sleazy politics. It’s also fairly one-note; I would have loved to have seen some alternative perspectives on Rove from some real admirers, of which I imagine there are many. I expect the book is slightly more substantive and rich, but the movie is definitely worth checking out if you want 85 minutes of Rovian drama.
58/100
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